Medical form for dive op?

[Wibble]

I'm in a group going on the Grand Sea Explorer in the Red Sea in OCtober; it is part of the Explorer Ventures fleet (a franchise boat, not owned by EV). We have had to sign a liability waiver that includes initialing a statement that says:

4. I understand that EV complies with the recommendations of the Recreational Scuba Diver Training Council (RSTC) regarding physical and mental fitness for diving. I affirm that I have reviewed the RSTC Medical Statement and the guidelines, standards and recommendations contained therein (http://www.explorerventures.com/pdf/medical_statement.pdf) and that either (1) I have no medical history or condition and am taking no medication contraindicated for diving, or (2) I will be in possession of a doctor’s statement less than one year old affirming my fitness to dive despite one or more contraindicated medical conditions or medications that I am taking. I understand that, if I have a contraindicated medical history or condition or take contraindicated medication, and can not provide a current doctor’s recommendation of my fitness to dive, I will be unable to participate in diving activities from EV’s vessel, and that no refund or other consideration will be given.​

It was recommended that we carry a signed medical with us, just in case. The embedded link is to the newest version of the form.

The form clearly says on question 2, if you're over 45 then goto box B which has 4 questions; so as long as you don't smoke (since when did this require a doctor's certificate!), and the other three, that's it. No need to answer all the other questions.

Struggle to see what your medical history as got to do with a recreational boat trip.

Do you have to fill in another form to say you can drink a beer without spilling it? Or another one if you're not a vegan... Do they provide yellow jackets for moving around the boat? Lifejackets? Require a full list of all dives you've ever done?

 

[tursiops]

Struggle to see what your medical history as got to do with a recreational boat trip.

You are a good example of why I don't want dive ops involved with judging my medical fitness to dive.

 

[ScubaSamScubaStevesFather]

I had to provide one for tech dive training. Grabbed the TDI release medical form for recreational diving and that was accepted

 

[Wibble]

You are a good example of why I don't want dive ops involved with judging my medical fitness to dive.

As ever, it's only you who are qualified to decide if you're fit to dive. You 'could' consult others, but it's you who must make the final decision.

Those forms are a massive arse covering exercise.

 

[BRT]

well, it kind of has to in order to be accurate.

Someday, If you are lucky, you too will be old. Diving is not as safe for old people as for young people. No activity is. But we still want to dive. They can ask all the questions. We can provide answers that will not alarm them. And hopefully they get some liability protection from our answers.

 

[boulderjohn]

If you want to see an invasive medical form, you should see what I had to fill out back in my UTD days. It had to be filled out online, and it was exhaustive. There was no place for a doctor to sign off--the UTD hierarchy read your form and decided on their if you were medically fit to dive. Not only was it exhaustive to fill out, but nothing was saved, and it did not have a time period for which it was good. That mean that if you took four classes in one year, you had to do the whole thing four times.

That included purely academic classes. I signed up to take Ratio Deco, a purely academic class done wholly in a classroom, with UTD owner Andrew Georgitsis as the instructor. I had to fill out the damn form, even though I had filled one out for another class only about a month before.

I was pissed. The section on prescription medications required me to name the medications and the dosage of each one. (With the more common forms, you just say you take prescription meds and the doctor signs that you are OK to go, keeping your actual meds private.) Having just done that for the other class and being pissed about having to do it, I skipped that section.

Then I went diving for that other class, and I stayed in a motel room, rooming with the UTD instructor for that class. I stepped out of the room and came back in to find my instructor rooting through my toilet kit. When I asked what he was doing, he said that Andrew had sent him a message saying I had not filled out the prescription section of the medical form, and my instructor was supposed to find out what medications and what doses I was taking so that Andrew could determine if it was safe for me to sit in a classroom with him.

 

[azstinger11]

If you want to see an invasive medical form, you should see what I had to fill out back in my UTD days. It had to be filled out online, and it was exhaustive. There was no place for a doctor to sign off--the UTD hierarchy read your form and decided on their if you were medically fit to dive. Not only was it exhaustive to fill out, but nothing was saved, and it did not have a time period for which it was good. That mean that if you took four classes in one year, you had to do the whole thing four times.

That included purely academic classes. I signed up to take Ratio Deco, a purely academic class done wholly in a classroom, with UTD owner Andrew Georgitsis as the instructor. I had to fill out the damn form, even though I had filled one out for another class only about a month before.

I was pissed. The section on prescription medications required me to name the medications and the dosage of each one. (With the more common forms, you just say you take prescription meds and the doctor signs that you are OK to go, keeping your actual meds private.) Having just done that for the other class and being pissed about having to do it, I skipped that section.

Then I went diving for that other class, and I stayed in a motel room, rooming with the UTD instructor for that class. I stepped out of the room and came back in to find my instructor rooting through my toilet kit. When I asked what he was doing, he said that Andrew had sent him a message saying I had not filled out the prescription section of the medical form, and my instructor was supposed to find out what medications and what doses I was taking so that Andrew could determine if it was safe for me to sit in a classroom with him.

Well since you seem to be so interested in my health, glad you could lend a hand with the next one, these suppositories are a real pain in the ass to do alone.

 

[tursiops]

I had to provide one for tech dive training. Grabbed the TDI release medical form for recreational diving and that was accepted

TDI/SDI now use the same new RSTC form that we have been discussing.

 

[boulderjohn]

TDI/SDI now use the same new RSTC form that we have been discussing.

I have a story about that, too.

In 2011 I decided to switch from UTD to TDI, because I had had previous TDI certifications. I contacted an instructor in Florida about getting trimix certification while I was on an extended stay there, and knowing that my previous TDI instructor had used the standard RSTC form, that is what I brought. I have a couple of "Yes" responses on the RSTC form, so I got my doctor's signature before heading to Florida.

Once there, my new TDI instructor said I could not use the RSTC form. I had to use the TDI form. No exceptions. He would not even look at the RSTC form I had brought. When I looked at it, I saw that page 2 of the TDI form, the one calling for the doctor's signature, was absolutely identical to the RSTC form. Not a pica of difference. I could just staple my RSTC page 2 to the TDI page 1, and he could never tell the difference.

But I had to fill out the TDI page 1. And when I did, I found that the items on the RSTC form that forced me to get a doctor's signature were not even mentioned on the TDI form. So I gould legitimately answer "No" to every item there and hand it in without the page 2 doctor permission.

 

[PirateFoxy]

This is true only if your relatives decide not to sue. You’re not the problem. They see a $$$$ payday.

I know this is an older post, but also check your insurance (health, life, etc.) fine print - a lot of the time the insurance company will reserve the right to sue on your "behalf" to recover funds they spend on you, if there is a possibility for them to do so. (A lot of the people I know who own horses have gotten much less casual about letting friends and relatives ride unless they're in a state with special equine laws due to this. Doesn't matter if your aunt/cousin/whatever won't sue you if they fall off if their insurance company will and they have no say in the matter.)

Basically your insurance company doesn't want to be out money if they can offload the expense to someone else (or someone else's policy.) So it's not an uncommon clause.