That pesky Medical Statement

[BertStevens]

I'd love to hear from Duke Dive Medicine on this.

 

[tarponchik]

Want to go dive them?

I'd certainly love to, but this is unlikely to happen in the near future. My wife has the strongest prejudice against boat diving in Florida since supposedly it makes her really seasick. So going to Florida means shore diving. Blue Heron Bridge, Dania Erojacks etc.

 

[drrich2]

I'd love to hear from Duke Dive Medicine on this.

I can help with that. Back in 2014, there was a long thread called Would You Let My Wife Dive? and he and RJP participated, as did I. In a nutshell, RJP presented the viewpoint of dive boat staff (e.g.: dive master, guide) who might be jeopardized in the event of a needed rescue effort without advance warning of risk, and Duke Dive Medicine made the point about how others are affected beyond the individual diver, and challenging the presumed assumption of a solo mindset in terms of risk & personal prerogative.

That's a long thread but contains a lot of what we're talking about here. Let's at least shoot them notice this discussion is going on (hope I'm doing this right).

@RJP
@Duke Dive Medicine

Richard.

 

[IBjones]

The very reason I bought a boat and give my money to the bank instead of the LDS. I don't need the "Scuba Gestapo" charters in order to dive. And when it gets to the point that they won't fill my tanks without written permission from my mama, then I'll buy a compressor and fill them myself.

I'm not into participating in the "PADI Global Scuba Police" program anymore, and I will always answer "no" to every question on the medical form. In that case, they have their release of liability if I lied and died, so they don't have to worry about my estate suing them. Because we all know that form is nothing more than a "cover-my-ass" for the dive shop.

You want to hear something too shocking to be funny? My BCD had the inflator hose recall on it. I took it to the LDS here in town. I brought the Aqua Lung recall sheet with me and advised the so-called technician that Aqua Lung says the inflator button could get stuck in the open position, causing and uncontrolled ascent. Do you wanna know what their "certified" "professional" dive shop tech told me? "Oh don't worry about it, just dive with it anyway. It'll probably be OK, but If the button gets stuck you can just disconnect the inflator hose."

THAT'S how many craps your local dive shops give about your safety. The medical form is for their lawyer, not for you. But I wonder what their lawyer would say about their advice from a shop employee to a customer?

After several emails and phone calls to Aqua Lung, we got it fixed. Aqua Lung was very surprised one of their "authorized dealers" would tell a customer to ignore a product safety recall. Since there was no local "authorized dealer" within 100 miles of me whose advice wasn't "Roll the dice and take your chances", Aqua Lung was very kind to me via the U.S. mail. Aqua Lung says they send the replacement part to their dealers for free every time there is a recall, but they couldn't send me the replacement part for me to put in myself. One Aqua Lung dealer in Raleigh said he had 20 of them in a box in his shop, but he couldn't sell the part to me directly (for liability reasons and because Aqua Lung prohibits it). My only option was I had to drive 100 miles to Raleigh and let him take the 5 minutes to screw the inflator hose off and screw the new inflator hose on, then drive back 100 miles to Beaufort. Heck, I unscrew the inflator hose and fill the BC with water and rinse it out, then screw it back on after every dive, but I can understand his concern. 99.99% of the worlds problems are due to scumbag lawyers.

Within 10 years I see the scuba sport basically policing itself out of business except for the few elite who don't mind the industry BS.

The irony,
"You don't fill out a form and you dive with us and die, that's a tragedy and unfair to the other divers!"
"You have a defective BC and dive with us and die, well that's OK because that's on Aqua Lung!"

 

[JohnN]

The very reason I bought a boat and give my money to the bank instead of the LDS. I don't need the "Scuba Gestapo" charters in order to dive. And when it gets to the point that they won't fill my tanks without written permission from my mama, then I'll buy a compressor and fill them myself.

I'm not into participating in the "PADI Global Scuba Police" program anymore, and I will always answer "no" to every question on the medical form. In that case, they have their release of liability if I lied and died, so they don't have to worry about my estate suing them. Because we all know that form is nothing more than a "cover-my-ass" for the dive shop.

You want to hear something too shocking to be funny? My BCD had the inflator hose recall on it. I took it to the LDS here in town. I brought the Aqua Lung recall sheet with me and advised the so-called technician that Aqua Lung says the inflator button could get stuck in the open position, causing and uncontrolled ascent. Do you wanna know what their "certified" "professional" dive shop tech told me? "Oh don't worry about it, just dive with it anyway. It'll probably be OK, but If the button gets stuck you can just disconnect the inflator hose."

THAT'S how many craps your local dive shops give about your safety. The medical form is for their lawyer, not for you. But I wonder what their lawyer would say about their advice from a shop employee to a customer?

After several emails and phone calls to Aqua Lung, we got it fixed. Aqua Lung was very surprised one of their "authorized dealers" would tell a customer to ignore a product safety recall. Since there was no local "authorized dealer" within 100 miles of me whose advice wasn't "Roll the dice and take your chances", Aqua Lung was very kind to me via the U.S. mail. Aqua Lung says they send the replacement part to their dealers for free every time there is a recall, but they couldn't send me the replacement part for me to put in myself. One Aqua Lung dealer in Raleigh said he had 20 of them in a box in his shop, but he couldn't sell the part to me directly (for liability reasons and because Aqua Lung prohibits it). My only option was I had to drive 100 miles to Raleigh and let him take the 5 minutes to screw the inflator hose off and screw the new inflator hose on, then drive back 100 miles to Beaufort. Heck, I unscrew the inflator hose and fill the BC with water and rinse it out, then screw it back on after every dive, but I can understand his concern. 99.99% of the worlds problems are due to scumbag lawyers.

Within 10 years I see the scuba sport basically policing itself out of business except for the few elite who don't mind the industry BS.

Although I agree with much of your sentiment about answering "no" on the medical form, it doesn't offer any protection to the LDS/charter operator from a suit from your heirs (at least in the US). On your (untimely demise) they can sue for most any reason they dream up. I believe it would cover them from a suit from you if you had an undisclosed "limitation" that injured you didn't kill you outright. Probably not a high-runner but it doesn't cost much.

 

[JamesBon92007]

The reality is regardless of public statements to the contrary most people see these forms for what they are and answer No to everything. For a reality check the next time someone is on a surface interval at the Palancar pier, look back and forth, and try to guess how much honesty there was involved in those ‘health’ questionnaire answers.

To me it seems unlikely that very many people will spend thousands of dollars and travel thousands of miles and then answer "yes" knowing that if they do, they might not get to go diving.

 

[KeithG]

Something no one has been able to answer to my satisfaction:

The question about family history of heart attack/stroke (or whatever the specific wording is): how far back do you have to go? I've checked the yes box, but added a note that the relative affected was a grandparent, not parent. Is checking yes when it was only a grandparent, not a parent/sibling, necessary?

and hypothetically speaking...

If my father died last week of a heart attack at age 105, do I now need to say YES to having a family history of heart attack?

Note that if he died of a heart attack at the tender age of 45, then I would have been able to answer NO for the next 25 years...

Which of these 2 situations seems to be more realistic for concern?

The form is a joke.

 

[mattia_v]

A few items to consider:
The value of an annual physical is debatable in terms of health gains if not performed based on risk profiles (it's all about pre-test likelihoods...). And it can provide a false sense of security; the things that get us in trouble are very hard to predict, so all we can do is tackle the risk factors. It seems to be common practice in the US, but I just don't get it (based on my own medical practice and training); it's a cultural thing to a large extent. Here in the Netherlands there's a focus on identifying / screening for risk factors and moving on from there: overweight, smoking, hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, kidney dysfunction, family history are triggers, and the ones that require blood tests need not necessarily be repeated annually.

As for family history, as a general rule, it's about first degree relatives with the condition at an age of 55 or younger.

(usual disclaimer, I am a doctor, but I am not your doctor)

 

[drrich2]

I don't think annual physical exams in the U.S. are anywhere near as common as a % of the population as one might think from reading media. Many people don't see a physician for years, unless they get sick enough to go in (for for some people, that'd have to be severe). Well-baby checks, then immunizations, a few visits for things like ear infections as a child, then for many people it's years before they set foot in a physician's office again.

Once they get old enough that periodic sickness drive them to physicians, and they get diagnosed with various ailments (e.g.: hypertension, high cholesterol) and put on prescription medications, and eventually get preventive services (e.g.: colonoscopy, mammograms) to reduce risk of ghastly ways to do (e.g.: eaten away at by colon cancer), then they start seeing the doctor regularly.

Richard.

 

[cburgert]

I dive with diabetes. I just don't dive if my sugar is low.