Keeping up with Changing Thinking in Scuba

[boulderjohn]

The trimix diving course I teach has a section imploring students to keep up with the changing research in the world of scuba. You don't want to base critical diving decisions on ideas that have been repudiated and are no longer believed to be true. The course itself is in example for that. It has extensive information on putting deep stops into a dive profile, and the standards require students to plan and execute a dive using deep stops. That standard, however, was dropped from the course last year, because recent research does not support the use of deep stops. The course, then, set a good example for its students when it changed the standards in light of recent research.

So how does a scuba diver keep up with changes in scuba knowledge?

I imagine a number of you would immediately reference ScubaBoard--that is, after all, how you found this thread. If you are a ScubaBoard reader who has encountered any of the very informative deep stop threads here, you would probably assume that the issue has been thoroughly settled. You have read the words of true experts in the field, and you have seen the recent research studies. You know that leading researchers no longer support deep stop methodology. You have come to a decision that is truly based on the most recent thinking by the leaders in the industry.

But what if you were a serious, conscientious diver who was not part of these ScubaBoard discussions? What if you had heard about deep stops, as an example, and wanted to know the latest thinking on them. What would you do?

My guess is most of you would start with Google, and you might put in a search phrase like "Scuba diving deep stops." So that is what I did, and I was appalled by the results.

• The featured quote that leads off the results is from Dr. Peter Bennett of DAN, and it firmly endorses deep stops. If you read the full article, though, you see that he pulls that punch in the full discussion, and you will further see that it was part of a panel discussion, with all other members of the panel strongly disagreeing with him.
• The second article quoted is also from DAN. It is a 2011 article promoting deep stops. There is a statement with it that says that the article does not reflect current thinking, but I suspect that people will read the article rather than note that it does not reflect current thought.
• The 5th article has a strong title, talking about the importance of deep stops in 2018--so it must have the latest and greatest stuff in it, right? Nope. There is no information in there that comes from the last 15 years, and it is a full-on endorsement for deep stops in all diving, including recreational diving.
• The 15th article is a strongly worded endorsement appearing on the web site of a major scuba agency--GUE. The article itself is undated, but the copyright statement on the bottom says 1998-2018, indicating to the casual reader that it is current thinking. This article says that your first stop should be at 80% of the depth of your profile--now that is a deep stop! Knowledgeable readers would know from the article's author (George Irvine) that the information is dated, but most readers would believe that the practice has the current GUE seal of approval, because there is nothing on the page to say otherwise.
• None of the heated and highly informative ScubaBoard threads appear in the first 10 pages of search results--which is as far as I went.
• In those first 10 pages of search results, I saw only a couple of results casting doubt on the efficacy of deep stops, and one of them was the aforementioned DAN article that had the non-representative quote from Dr. Bennett as an excerpt.

In short, if I were to research current thinking on deep stops using Google as my guide, I would come away absolutely convinced that the latest and greatest thinking on deep stops is that they are absolutely and unquestionably the way to go with my diving--the absolute opposite of what is actually happening with current thinking.

So--where is a diver to go to find out what is going on in the world of scuba diving?

 

[ChuckP]

Wow - as a dude that wants to learn more and more, eventually teach and guide - that's the opposite of what I'd want to hear.

I understand all the differing agencies, I also understand it's a business too - but isn't there a group that PADI, SSI etc base their training from and wouldn't that agency/group have the latest and greatest info?

 

[aquacat8]

What a great question @boulderjohn

 

[Jack Hammer]

If you add "current thinking on..." to the search it comes up a bit better

 

[drrich2]

So--where is a diver to go to find out what is going on in the world of scuba diving?

If there were an easy, appropriate answer, I believe you would've told us in your original post!

So I take it there's no widely accepted central authority on such scuba topics with a website where such answers can be found & believed?

Scuba Board is a great resource, for people personally invested in taking the time & effort to work through the threads, weighing the views & logical basis for them (and yes, chronology of posts), but many people don't do that. They Google and hope to get lucky.

What I would do with this topic is start with Scuba Board, Google more widely if not satisfied, and if still not satisfied, maybe Google a respected authority on scuba diving - such as Steve Lewis (a.k.a. Doppler on this forum) and see what articles he might have on it. I see he has a tech diving blog. But I only know who he is because of Scuba Board!

Richard.

 

[northernone]

This thread should be good! Thank you.

I start with SB to know what questions to ask. Prior I'd look at who was being published, and search for related work by the names I thought I could trust. Besides for that, I'd get wet with the oldest divers I could find that survived learning what worked in the environment I wanted to visit.

I don't always need cutting edge, tried and somewhat true can be valuable too.

Cameron

 

[rsingler]

Not that I didn't believe you...

Wow! That is one scary search result
Perhaps we can enlist @Dr Simon Mitchell to enter the popular magazine fray and bump some current thinking into the search results with an article or three?

We do live in a bit of a bubble here on SB, don't we?

 

[nadwidny]

Wow - as a dude that wants to learn more and more, eventually teach and guide - that's the opposite of what I'd want to hear.

I understand all the differing agencies, I also understand it's a business too - but isn't there a group that PADI, SSI etc base their training from and wouldn't that agency/group have the latest and greatest info?

No.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Was there some sort of spike in DCS cases that prompted the elimination of deep stops, or is all this just theoretical?
Were deep stops a fad that just came and went like so many other things in diving?
Was there ever any solid science supporting deep stops? Who were the ones that came up with the notion?
Why were deep stops initiated in the first place, was there some sort of spike in DCS cases that promted the practice?

I read a lot of stuff here and everywhere. I don’t know who or what to believe anymore. If I’ve never been bent doing what I’m doing, should I just keep doing it?

 

[KevinNM]

As far as I know, the deep stop advantage stuff is all theoretical or based on how people feel after a dive. It wasn't insane, there were reasonable physiological reasons for people to think that it made sense. And it got people out of the water faster, so people liked that. But when tested, it didn't do what it was supposed to do. Which is like a lot of medicine. The fact that something seems logical doesn't mean it works.

Of course, one has to be sane in choosing when to insist on proof in medicine.
Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials

Results We were unable to identify any randomised controlled trials of parachute intervention.

Conclusions As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomised controlled trials. Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data. We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute.