Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine

[EthylMethylMan]

Hey all, figured I’d make a hyperbaric thread since it’s (in my opinion) highly underrated, and yet highly accessible to most physicians. Hyperbaric medicine is a very niche field with interesting pathophysiology and a surprisingly wide variety in terms of patient population. Dive medicine is really neat, and no one outside our humble club knows much about it. You get procedures and can make pretty good money if you’re willing to hustle a bit. And lifestyle is great, even at busy hyperbaric centers. I’m board-certified in undersea and hyperbaric medicine and am happy to answer any questions.

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[flextape]

Hey all, figured I’d make a hyperbaric thread since it’s (in my opinion) highly underrated, and yet highly accessible to most physicians. Hyperbaric medicine is a very niche field with interesting pathophysiology and a surprisingly wide variety in terms of patient population. Dive medicine is really neat, and no one outside our humble club knows much about it. You get procedures and can make pretty good money if you’re willing to hustle a bit. And lifestyle is great, even at busy hyperbaric centers. I’m board-certified in undersea and hyperbaric medicine and am happy to answer any questions.

Could you elaborate a little on the setting, scope of practice, and an issues in the field?

 

[EthylMethylMan]

Could you elaborate a little on the setting, scope of practice, and an issues in the field?

Setting can be inpatient with clinic or all clinic. Private practice shops are relatively common as well if that’s more your speed. Just be ready to vet these private practices because some do shady stuff (I.e. cash payment operations treating conditions without evidence). There is almost universally going to be some amount of wound care in the mix.

Scope is surprisingly wide. The bread-and-butter is going to be older diabetics and cancer survivors, because diabetic foot ulcers and delayed radiation injuries are the most common conditions you’ll treat. But you’ll sometimes see SCUBA divers (commercial and recreational), and healthy adults and children with emergent HBO conditions (CO, decompression sickness, compromised surgical flap). There are some procedures. The most common is wound debridement, but you’ll also occasionally encounter myringotomy (if you see emergency cases). Maybe once in your career you’ll have to needle decompress a chest, but hopefully not even once.

There are two main issues in the field that I’ve directly felt as an attending. First is midlevel creep, though this is of course not unique to this field. More and more places are hiring midlevels to see HBO consults and do evaluations. But reassuringly, I’ve yet to see a place that allows midlevels to supervise HBO treatments without an attending physician. So while present, it’s not as bad as I’ve seen it get in many other fields. Second is other services either not knowing what HBO is or assuming it’s voodoo doctor nonsense. This is especially hard because we rely on referrals for a lot of our volume. You’ll need to go to bat for the specialty when trying to get other services to give you referrals.

 

[playmakar]

Thanks for the info! how do you get certified in hyperbarics? and what procedures are you referring to?
I'm applying into prev med next cycle; are any particular programs geared more towards hyperbarics exposure?

 

[playmakar]

Hey all, figured I’d make a hyperbaric thread since it’s (in my opinion) highly underrated, and yet highly accessible to most physicians. Hyperbaric medicine is a very niche field with interesting pathophysiology and a surprisingly wide variety in terms of patient population. Dive medicine is really neat, and no one outside our humble club knows much about it. You get procedures and can make pretty good money if you’re willing to hustle a bit. And lifestyle is great, even at busy hyperbaric centers. I’m board-certified in undersea and hyperbaric medicine and am happy to answer any questions.

Thanks for the info! how do you get certified in hyperbarics? and what procedures are you referring to?
I'm applying into prev med next cycle; are any particular programs geared more towards hyperbarics exposure?