cram
Contributor
DaleC:I think the gist of his talk, PFO or not, was that most DCS risk can be mitigated by diving conservative profiles and not ascending fast. tech diving was a different story though (that we did not pursue at the time).
I attended the same lecture presented by Dr. Harrison as DaleC this past weekend, and his summary fits with what I recall except on one point. (With the same disclaimer that any errors should be attributed to me, not to Dr. Harrison!)
As I recall it was not technical diving that was considered a "different story", but commercial diving. Even then I got the impression that he recommended the surgery only in cases where the employer/government required it for the diver to keep his job. The statistics he presented suggested that the risks of the surgery were simply that much higher than the risks of diving with a PFO.
The take-home message for me was that a PFO is one many factors that can increase an individual's susceptibility to DCS, and just like being a bit out of shape, or a bit older, can, in most cases, be dealt with by diving conservatively.