there is little to no instruction to deal with current in a PADI OW course, we do not have any current in our lake so it is relatively difficult for me to teach it other than to mention some of the things to think about. so what. does that mean my course is insufficient? we do not have cold water, does that make me a poor instructor and my students unprofessional?
Snail, you are raising one of the oldest questions in diving instruction. It is part of why PADI exists.
A long time ago, for several years, I was the safety officer for our dive club in Panama. Part of the job was to interview divers coming into the area and make sure they would be safe going on our club dives. Not exactly sure of the number, but it was more than 500 and less than 1,000.
Basically, there were only two types of diving in Panama at the time, shore diving in the Atlantic and lake or boat diving in the Pacific. One can have huge surf, very tricky entries and the other has poor vis and major currents (from the 30+ ft tides).
Both have lots of things that can hurt you.
So someone shows up from Ohio or any of 30 other states without salt water). They have just been certified. I don't ever remember thinking their instruction was bad, that they had poor instructors. But one is faced with one of two realities:
1. They have their ow card, so they are skilled and competent to dive here.
2. They have a card, that shows they know how to use SCUBA gear, but they are completely unprepared to dive here.
It might help to know that roughly 85% of the accidents involved the 40% of divers that were trained in inland states.
Our club did not have any of those accidents, but we required inexperienced divers to learn first.
I never had a single diver complain about having to go thru some extra training.
Today, someone learns in a lake, drives over the to gulf coast and they get upset and or lie about their experience so they don't have to have a dive master with them on their first dives. Some of this is the fault of instruction, some our current attitude.
I dive less today than I did 35 years ago, but 35 years ago, I never saw a diver panic without a major, very real reason. Today, I see at least one every month, sometimes every week. Yes the conditions can be difficult for a new diver, but I am diving today in the same place I started diving. I am shocked at how many near misses I have seen in the last 3 years. I believe it starts with instruction that does not clearly let the diver know what they have learned and what they have not.
If you teach in a lake, you have made a lot of lake divers. If you teach in the Northwest, you have made a lot of cold, dark water divers. Like it or not, the skill set is not the same, and one happens to be way more difficult. Nothing to be proud of, or pound your chest about.. it just is what it is.
Thanks for the correction though 
