An Open Letter of Personal Perspective to the Diving Industry by NetDoc

[The Chairman]

Just an aside, the instructors I know who have been kicked out of PADI just signed up with SDI or SSI and are still teaching. Removing them from one agency doesn't neccesarily fix the problem.

This is quite the indictment. Was it just a paper crossover or did they do another IE/ITC? I can't speak to SSI, but SDI at least requires that you're an instructor in good standing with another agency.

 

[descent]

... If if they were able to save the millions that they loose to these type of shotgun suits, what would you suggest they do to to increase their current system to remove / re-educate bad instructors? ...

The non-diving general public are getting a somewhat incoherent message. PADI's marketing strongly suggests the idea of happy older kids in the water.

Is this actually true? If that really is a service for sale, then it should be unambiguously true. No corner-cases, no regrettable exceptions. And especially, no weak or unsustainable partnerships with other organizations.

So the hard question is: should PADI be partnering with other organizations who will provide some of the safety and some of the supervision?

Unless PADI regional QA managers are willing to show up uninvited to strike terror into the hearts of the [-]franchisees[/-] partner orgs and send them scurrying around tidying up, I don't see how programs like DSD can avoid unfortunate high profile incidents like this one in the future.

 

[Zippsy]

Pete, I'll have to check as I only know who they teach for know. It is entirely possible that after some incident, they applied for membership in another organization before PADI kicked them out.

Descent, I'm sorry but I can't answer your question. I just don't follow what you are saying.

 

[descent]

... Descent, I'm sorry but I can't answer your question. I just don't follow what you are saying.

Ah, fair enough.

Zippsy, how many times have you had a DSD session interrupted by the arrival of someone from a PADI regional office on an unannounced inspection visit?

And your peers, your fellow instructors? Do they mention surprise visits?

 

[redacted]

OK, let's hear it. Pretend you are the new President and CEO of PADI. You meet with the board and make a statement. I will give you the beginning of that statement, you complete it.

Beginning of statement:
As you know, we have many, many hundreds of thousands of scuba instructors around the world. It is important that we make sure they are doing a great job. We currently send out surveys to students and then follow up whenever those surveys indicate a problem. Whenever we get a complaint, we check up on it and make decisions on what to do for each case, ranging from re-education to expulsion. That is not enough though! We need to do more. I have a proposal for a better way to to do it, one that will not be so ridiculously expensive that it will require us to raise our management fees so much that our instructors will abandon us and go to agencies that do not even send the money to do what we are doing now. Here is my proposal:

Your Proposal:

CEO's Proposal: Our primary concern needs to be profit. All else is secondary. The truth is, even in light of the standards violation complaints and reports we receive, there are very, very few embarrassing accidents. Therefor, we can maximize profit by simply expelling instructors, we do have an excess, when there is an obvious violation just to COA. And we need to continue to make sure our established standards will provide us adequate protection and point the finger at instructors rather than us. That way, when things do go wrong, we can expect to be protected enough that it will not be difficult to simply settle out of court. The annual cost of such an approach should be less than $250K annually. The alternative, a credible inspection program, would cost more than that and still leave us with potential liabilities if and when we have another accident. It is just good business.

 

[Omisson]

Possibly panic? We don't know?



The other boy said that the victim was looking at him and had his hand out for help, and his reg was out of his mouth. That does not sound like he was dead. But why make an assumption?



That however has not been the general consensus of dive medicine doctors in decades. There are many articles on asthma and diving. The gist of them are that asthma does not necessarily contraindicate diving. The determination of whether someone with asthma is fit to dive is made on a case by case basis and involves, among other things, lung volume, severity and triggers of the asthma, how well controlled it is, etc.

My point is, why are we assuming facts not in evidence? And why are we assigning blame to the victim or his family, especially since the source of that blame has not even been confirmed? Why are we assigning blame at all?

There is no doubt the family lied in both the Boy Scout medical form and the PADI one- no respiratory conditions were disclosed.

I believe the depositions indicated the boy had recently been treated for an acute respiratory infection-

Maybe SUBFIEND - since he had so much to say before - can confirm this information.

 

[tursiops]

This is quite the indictment. Was it just a paper crossover or did they do another IE/ITC? I can't speak to SSI, but SDI at least requires that you're an instructor in good standing with another agency.

The only case I know of, the instructor was already in two, maybe three agencies, PADI kicked him out, he just kept on with the other(s).

 

[Zippsy]

Descent, good question. Personally, I think that that system wouldn't work because teaching is a small enough portion of the time many instructors are actually working, a surprise visitor might sit around for a few days waiting for a class. The locations of teaching would also make it impossible or cost prohibitive (I work on an LOB so that is the situation I can relate to most). That may not be effective.

That said, at a recent meeting with PADI Asia Pacific in Singapore, I suggested that PADI put in some fake students into classes. They didn't want to do that as they felt the current system of questionnaires and mandatory reporting by other PADI pro witnesses of violations was good enough to catch the bad instructors. I'm not sure I agree with them but I'm just repeating their position.
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Awap, I thought trolling was a violation of forum rules, no? If you can't think of a single positive / serious suggestion, what makes you think PADI could wave a magic wand and come up with the perfect solution to make everyone happy?

 

[boulderjohn]

CEO's Proposal: Our primary concern needs to be profit. All else is secondary. The truth is, even in light of the standards violation complaints and reports we receive, there are very, very few embarrassing accidents. Therefor, we can maximize profit by simply expelling instructors, we do have an excess, when there is an obvious violation just to COA. And we need to continue to make sure our established standards will provide us adequate protection and point the finger at instructors rather than us. That way, when things do go wrong, we can expect to be protected enough that it will not be difficult to simply settle out of court. The annual cost of such an approach should be less than $250K annually. The alternative, a credible inspection program, would cost more than that and still leave us with potential liabilities if and when we have another accident. It is just good business.

In other words, since you cannot think of a better way to do things in response to my challenge, you will simply respond with a cynical and sarcastic explanation of what already exists.

My career was in public education, first as a teacher and then as an administrator. It takes years of expensive college and special training to prepare a teacher. They have to pass some pretty tough exams to get state certifications. They have to go through regular renewal programs. They have to be observed and evaluated by specially trained professionals regularly. this process costs many, many thousands of dollars for each teacher.

And we still have crappy teachers in nearly every school.

So again, what is your proposal for weeding out weak instructors before they cause a problem?

 

[redacted]

In other words, since you cannot think of a better way to do things in response to my challenge, you will simply respond with a cynical and sarcastic explanation of what already exists.

My career was in public education, first as a teacher and then as an administrator. It takes years of expensive college and special training to prepare a teacher. They have to pass some pretty tough exams to get state certifications. They have to go through regular renewal programs. They have to be observed and evaluated by specially trained professionals regularly. this process costs many, many thousands of dollars for each teacher.

And we still have crappy teachers in nearly every school.

So again, what is your proposal for weeding out weak instructors before they cause a problem?

My career was in the military. We had proficiency tests, annual evaluations, frequent planned and unplanned inspections, and up or out promotions. It was not perfect but it worked fairly well. It took a good bit of time and effort. It was pretty rare for the "CEO" to develop the plan. But he did provide the leadership, direction, and guidance to develop the plan. It can start with the CEO saying, "We have got to do better. We can not accept tragic accidents like this where the best we can do is settle out of court and sacrifice the instructor."

A questionnaire designed to identify standards violations would be a start. Right now, there appears to be a questionnaire but who know what its main purpose is? And an inspection program is pretty basic yet it seems to be non-existent. Workers do those things well that the boss checks.

You are a scuba instructor. What is your solution???

For me, I'm an outsider not allowed to have the information critical to contribute to a serious improvement plan. So, I'll probably just continue to piss in their tea cup until they do something.