Doctors, wannabe-doctors, associate members, wives, girlfriends, and those
just interested in recreational diving medicine (like moi) made time to
turn up in Madang, Papua New Guinea late May.

The main topic for the SPUMS meet this year was Diving and the Lung. The
workshop theme was drowning/near drowning. Our guest speaker was Dr James
Francis, an occupational physician specializing in diving and hyperbaric
medicine.

Presently he is a consultant in diving medicine for the Diving Diseases
Research Centre in Plymouth UK.

1996-2000 Visiting Professor of Pysiology & Biophysics, State Uni. of New
Year at Buffalo. He was seconded there under an Inter-agency Personnel
Agreement to the US Naval Submarine Med. Research Lab, Groton, CT.
Was involved in the introduction of the Submarine Escape Immersion Equip.
into US Navy subs & improving the survivability of subs in the event of a
sinking. Principal investigator for a study of carbon dioxide production by
survivors in a disabled sub. & the development of senior survivor decision
aids including as US Guard book & a computerized Submarine Escape & Rescue
Expert System (SEAREX).

1978-1996 Medical officer in the Royal Navy undertaking training in
Occupational Medicine and specializing in Applied Physiology. Spent 3 years
studying cold injury as suffered by the Royal Marines in the Falklands &
then moved to diving medicine. Spent 4 years at the US Naval Medical
Research Instit., Bethesda studying the mechanisms of neurological injury
in decompression illness. Returned to the UK in the rank of Surgeon
Commander & became Senior Medical Officer (Diving Medicine) 1989-1993 &
then Head of Undersea Medicine before leaving the Navy.

Our normal schedule for the week was:
Buffet breakfast. 2 dives in the morning. Buffet lunch.
Two conference sessions split around a tea break 3pm - 7pm.
Pre-dinner Drinks.  Buffet dinner.  Cigars & nightcaps.
Sleep (some partied, some kept others awake with their supersonic
snoring .... me, I slept through all of it).

Day 1 - Sat 26th
Delegates arrived at Brisbane airport in drips & drabs from various
countries all morning. 1pm we all boarded the scheduled flight over to Port
Moresby. Zipping through customs we were transferred over to the Airways
Hotel to kill time. The bar staff were certainly busy that day. Had plenty
of time to catch up with some SPUMS members who had not attended a
conference in a while. As our chartered flight from Moresby to Madang was
not departing till 7pm we had plenty of time to swap tales.

Day 2 - Sun 27th
Morning free to sort out our dive gear & take a check-out dive. 90% of the
divers passed on the check-out dive paying instead for an extra day of
diving (2 tank boat trip) on top of their pre-paid dive package.
Dive 1 Barracuda Point.   Dive 2 Pig Wall.  5pm we turned up for the
conference registration and finished off with a Welcome Cocktail Party.

Day 3 - Mon 28th
I was not surprised to see how many of the *once-a-year-resort-divers*
failed to show up for their allocated boat departure time. Could not have
been due to the challenge of emptying their entire duty free quota in one
night ;-) And this was after free drinkies at the cocktail party!!
I managed to wing it that I was on the last boat scheduled for departure
each day as I am not a *morning-person*.
Dive 3 Magic Passage.   Dive 4 Eel Garden.
Topics presented in the afternoon:
Pulmonary fitness to dive - how to assess - James Francis
Physiology of breathhold diving - James Francis
Effect of hyperbaric oxygen on lung volumes - Paul Thomas
Tear film bubbles - Mike Bennett
Reverse dive profiles - Guy Williams
Management of Decompression Illness in a diver with pulmonary oxygen
toxicity - Chris Acott
Deep air diving - Bill Brogan

Day 4 - Tues 29th
Dive 5 Milky Way.   Dive 6 Henry Lieth wreck.
Topics presented in the afternoon:
Multicentre trial of lignocaine - James Francis
Lung function testing - Paul Thomas
Asthma & Diving - screening protocol - Cathy Meehan
Anatomy of death in a diver - Chris Acott
Effects of hyperbaric oxygen on blood glucose levels in diabetics - Barbara
Trykto
SPUMS Journal Editorial - John Knight
The presenter for the Port Moresby chamber presentation failed to turn up.

Day 5 - Wed 30th
Dive 7 Planet Rock.    Dive 8 Barracuda Point.
Topics presented in the afternoon:
Survival in a disabled submarine - James Francis
Lung assessment for submarine escape - Robyn Walker
A pulmonary hypothetical - Mike Bennett & Assoc.
Drowning/Near drowning workshop introduction & overview - Chris Acott
New Zealand diving drowning 1980-2000 - Mike Davis

Day 6 - Thurs 31st
Dive 9 USS Boston wreck.    Dive 10 The Quarry.
Topics presented in the afternoon:
Immersion pulmonary oedema - Simon Mitchell
Pathophysiology of drowning - Robert North
Summary of UHMS workshop on near drowning - Chris Acott
Causes of drowning in divers - Guy Williams
Unconsciousness in divers - James Francis
Saltwater aspiration - Simon Mitchell
Near drowning & the unresponsive diver: Rescue training for recreational
scuba divers - Drew Richardson (PADI USA)

Day 7 - Friday 1st
Dive 11 Planet Rock.   Dive 12 B25 plane wreck.
Topics presented in the afternoon:
Lignocaine in dysbaric disease - Simon Mitchell
IPPV/CPAP/PEEP in hypberbaric chambers - Barbara Trytko
Decompression modelling/decompression modelling theory in near drowning -
Chris Acott
Policy discussion/Workshop conclusion - Chris Acott/Group
Annual general meeting
2000-hrs Conference dinner & cruise.

A pleasant trip with 28-29 degrees celcius temperatures UW. So warm that I
felt like I was being dipped in a hot bath. Sadly, even though I have a
semi-dry wetsuit, I doubt I will be rushing out for a dive in Perth now
that winter has set in with 16 degrees celcius uw temps :-(
Now Ive caught up with all the crap at w**k I can put aside some time this
w/e to write up a dive report for Madang and Tufi.
Viv