this is certainly an interesting thread. i cannot lie and say i have read every post but i have looked at most. so forgive me if i repeat some of what has already been said.
i hope it is understood that the number of dives is a "minimum" standard. i often wonder sometimes if people assume that if you meet any "minimum" standard (no matter what field we are talking about) that you are somehow immediately an expert in that given profession. i believe the burden should be squarely on the dive shops that employ dive pros. they are the ones that have the ultimate responsibility in making sure their employees are properly suited and have adequate experience to perform the duties to which they would be assigned. the skills and experiences required may be vastly different from region to region depending on the type of diving being done in that area.
i have seen it mentioned several times already.......you may be competent enough to lead small groups of rookie divers on a inland lake shore dive with 50 foot viz, no current, and a max depth of 30 feet in 70 degree water. but that does not mean that same DM (or instructor for that matter) should be allowed to lead a group of highly trained divers on a 90 foot wreck, 5 miles off shore, with 5 foot viz, rough seas, and 36 degree water.
it has also been mentioned (finally) that perhaps the "minimum" standards could, and should in my opinion, include hours under the water. not just a number of logged dives.
using myself as an example.......i have only logged about 220 dives. those are over a period of about 20 years. and definitely still consider myself a rookie diver. but the majority of those dives have been in varied conditions. they include warm calm water shallow reefs, deep warm water high current wrecks, ice cold low viz wrecks, overhead environments like ice and cavern, night dives etc. with an average dive time of maybe 45 minutes per dive and an average depth of 60 feet or deeper. and these have taken place in different regions, with different shops, different weather conditions, different levels of dive buddies experience, etc. i have also been exposed to a number of instructors during my training and they all offer a wide range of experience to draw from. so does this make me at least a bit more "qualified" to take the leap into the pro ranks where i can share some of these experiences to help train new divers ?? maybe ?? maybe not ??
as compared to some of the divers i am currently training with.......some have met the minimum number of dives, but the dives are all the same shallow shore dives, calm waters, no current, and average maybe 15 to 20 minutes each. they have only ever been exposed to one dive shop, and only to a couple of instructors who were all trained at that same dive shop. so if they have met the same "minimum" standards as i have, are they just as qualified to instruct new students ?? maybe ?? maybe not ??
should a pilot with 100 twenty minute flights in good weather out of the same airport be considered the same level as one who has 100 flights of sixty minutes each at 10 different airports in snow, wind, rain, fog, at night etc. i don't think they should. but the question posed here is, would each of those pilots qualify to be given there licence and be allowed to continue on to the next level.
i personally think the standards should be more stringent on who should be accepted to the pro ranks. i do not believe the majority of divers with 60 to 100 dives have anywhere near enough real world experience to be in charge of turning out newly certified divers.
but that being said, if this is the situation we are currently faced with, i must hope that the majority of individual shop owners will realize that becoming a DM or instructor under such bare minimum conditions does not mean their staff is qualified to handle every situation thrown at them. it should only mean they are at the very beginning of what should be a long road of gaining experience and knowledge under the guidance of that shops owners/operators and more seasoned veteran divers
