How to Dive MD

[Alexisdog]

Curious as to how to end up in dive medicine. The life of sunning on the beach all day, waiting by the hyperbaric chamber, doesn’t seem to be a bad one .

I see no residencies in dive medicine. Is it a fellowship off of internal medicine -> pulmonary or off of anesthesiology?

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

Curious as to how to end up in dive medicine. The life of sunning on the beach all day, waiting by the hyperbaric chamber, doesn’t seem to be a bad one .

I see no residencies in dive medicine. Is it a fellowship off of internal medicine -> pulmonary or off of anesthesiology?

Hi Alexis,

First, please allow me to dispel the notion that hyperbaric medicine docs live the easy life ;-)

There are a couple of routes for MDs to get into hyperbaric medicine. The absolute minimum, entry-level training is a 40-hour course in hyperbaric medicine. That would qualify one to see patients primarily in an outpatient setting for indications aside from diving-related injuries, e.g. wound healing. That's not a blanket statement that graduates of a 40-hour course are not qualified to treat divers, but the course just touches on diving medicine and doesn't prepare practitioners to see the full gamut of diving injuries.

There are also a number of hyperbaric medicine fellowships in the US. The two primary bodies that accredit fellowship-trained MDs are the American College of Emergency Physicians for EM physicians, and the American Board of Preventive Medicine for everyone else. ACEP has a nice list of approved fellowship programs on their website here. Fellowship training is rigorous and involves seeing both emergent and ambulatory hyperbaric patients, teaching, and research.

Best regards,
DDM

 

[rhwestfall]

@LandonL