Christian Gerzner <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Andy B's comments about cardiac disease, etc, snipped :-) >SPUMS stands for the South Pacific Underwater Medicine (-cal?) Society. Yep .. its Medicine. Christian, The SPUMS annual scientific mtg was held this May, in Fiji around the same time the anaesthetist's conference was on. The theme for the SPUMS meet was Fitness to Dive! Topics covered were: Standard practice for medical assessment in recreational diving, Diabetes & Diving, In water restrictions for the so-called Unfit, Effects of pseudoephedrine & antihistamines in the hyperbaric environment , Prevalence of Asthma in scuba divers, Screening for Patent Foramen Ovale, A Pathologist's view of diving medicine, Yo-yo diving, Handicapped divers & children, Health surveillance in the 21st century, Resort course medicals, Resumption of diving after a DCI incident, Hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the prevention of Osteoradionecrosis of the facial bones .. and so on. While chatting with a few of the Docs after dinner & drinks I was amazed to hear how many divers with suspect problems had come to them for a medical. When it was discovered the patient had a problem (that they denied having) they would then shop around for someone who would pass them fit to dive. One of my friends (Rob) had the police knocking on his door asking why he had passed a recently deceased diver as fit to dive. Rob, being an ordinary GP, had referred the patient on to one of the SPUMS preferred diver docs for a thorough dive medical. Rob suspected the patient was lying about his asthma after failing a simple stress test. Rob is very thorough .. he will spend up to an hour talking over diving health hazards with patients willing to listen. Of course the asthmatic knew he wasnt going to pass if he fessed up to using his medication nearly daily, so he found another Doc, sucked on his ventolin before the checkout & passed because this Doc wasnt up to speed with diving medicals. Rob feels very guilty he did not follow-up on this patient & he certainly was given a heavy grilling by the police even though it was NOT him that passed the deceased diver as fit to dive. Viv