Thursday, June 13
Opening Ceremony / Welcome - UHMS President
Pete Witucki, MD
About the Lecture:
Provide an overview of activities, plans, and outcomes from initiatives carried out by UHMS home office, officers and committees.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Peter Witucki, MD is a Undersea & Hyperbaric Medicine Specialist in San Diego, CA and has over 28 years of experience in the medical field. He graduated from Loyola University Of Chicago/Stritch School Of Medicine medical school in 1994. He is affiliated with UCSD Medical Center. Dr. Witucki joined the faculty of the Department of Emergency Medicine at UCSD in 2003. He works clinically in the Emergency Dept as well as at the Hyperbaric Chamber and holds board certifications in both specialties. He was a former Diving Medical Officer in the US Navy and has worked with SEALs, Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Submarine Forces in both an active and reserve capacity. He serves on the San Diego Diver Death Review Committee helping to investigate diving deaths in our county. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society. His academic and research interests include medial education and diving medicine.
International Panel: Diving Decompression an actual view:
Costantino Balestra, Jacek Kot, Jean-Pierre Imbert, and Armin Sidali
About the Lecture
For several years, the Haldanian approach to decompression has been improved after considering data that were not available at the origin of the concept. We will attempt to draw a broad picture of the view, adding some non-Haldanian “ingredients” for future decompression algorithms development. For instance, one can figure out a decompression strategy when planning to run a semi-marathon. He could run the first 5 km rapidly to create a gap and then progressively slow down for the rest of the distance. Alternatively, he could save his resources by starting slowly and afford to run faster at the end of the race. He can decide which strategy to choose if he knows the last 3 km includes a steep climb. With the tendency of individualizing decompression strategies, a lot of personal “receipts” are used; we will try to help everyone to be able to choose a decompression strategy by means of updated knowledge and decompression understanding.
About the Speakers:
Costantino “Tino” Balestra, MD, PhD
Pr Costantino "Tino" Balestra started to study neurophysiology of fatigue then started studies on environmental physiology issues. He teaches physiology, biostatistics, research methodology, as well as other subjects. He Is the Director of the Integrative Physiology Laboratory and a full-time professor at the Haute Ecole Bruxelles-Brabant (Brussels). He is VP of DAN Europe for research and education, Immediate past President of the European Underwater and Baromedical Society.
Jacek Kot, MD, PhD
Prof. Dr Jacek Kot is a specialist in anesthesiology and intensive care. He is a full-time Professor in Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine at the Medical University of Gdansk, Poland, also serving as the Chief of Research and Development of the National Centre for Hyperbaric Medicine in Gdynia, Poland. The Centre has several multiplace hyperbaric chambers, a dry saturation simulator with a ‘wet pot’, and the 6-bed Intensive Care Unit within the University Hospital. Jacek Kot is the present President of the European Committee for Hyperbaric Medicine (ECHM), and from 2015 to 2018, he was the President of the European Underwater and Baromedical Society (EUBS). He has been involved in the international cooperation between European diving and hyperbaric centers (COST-B14, OXYNET, PHYPODE, DAN) and the UHMS International Web-based Education Initiative. His professional interests include mainly HBOT in deep dives, saturation decompressions, and critically ill patients, especially with severe soft tissue infections.
Jean-Pierre Imbert
JP Imbert spent 19 years at Comex, a historical leading diving company, as Diving Manager. He was involved in the Comex research on hydrogen dives and computed the French MT92 tables. He participated to the Norwegian deep projects of the 80’s and developed the Comex procedures for saturation to 300 m in Brazil. He then turned to technical diving and became an IANTD instructor in France, training trimix and rebreather divers for 10 years. Back to the offshore industry as a diving consultant, he has since kept editing diving manuals and decompression procedures for the large North Sea companies. He has published on decompression modelling, table validation and recently on divers’ monitoring.
Armin Sidali
Armin Sidali started his career as a mixed gas diver. He then became a technical diving instructor specialized in cave and wreck diving. He was Diving Manager in a small diving company in Barcelona when he conducted the first altitude saturation on a mountain dam in Spain. He got his first experience of hyperbaric interventions during the Barcelona subway Line 2 construction. He has since conducted difficult tunnel interventions around the world. His achievements include the successful completion of the first trimix saturation and the introduction and validation of trimix bounce tables in Hong Kong deep tunnel projects.
Top articles in Hyperbaric Medicine
Emma Rogers, MD: UPenn Fellow
About the Lecture
Reviewing pertinent articles from 2023-2024.
Professional Practice Gaps covered in lecture:
About the Speaker:
Dr. Rogers is a current fellow in Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She completed her residency in Emergency Medicine in 2023. She is a graduate of Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and an alumna of Cornell University.
Surviving a Medicare Audit – Lessons Learned Panel
Helen Gelly, MD and Nick Bird, MD
About the Lecture:
This talk provides a summary of a CMS Targeted Probe and Educate audit was weathered, and steps you can take to both reduce your risk and increase your chances of a successful outcome.
About the Speakers:
Helen Gelly, MD:
Dr. Gelly has been involved in hyperbaric medicine and wound care since 1991. Past positions have included Medical Directorships at academic and community hyperbaric medicine and wound care programs. She started a non-hospital affiliated hyperbaric medicine center which was one of the first UHMS accredited centers. She has been actively involved in billing and reimbursement issues for both facilities and physicians. Until recently, she was the Medical Director of Hyperbaric Physicians of Georgia, a group of physicians dedicated to the practice of hyperbaric medicine and wound healing, with 5 subspecialty boarded physicians in its membership. In addition to lecturing nationally on hyperbaric medicine and wound healing for many years, she was the president of the Gulf Coast Chapter of the UHMS from 2005-2007. Currently, she serves as the Emeritus Medical Director of Hyperbaric Physicians of Georgia, and as C.E.O. for HyperbaRXs.
Nick Bird, MD:
Dr. Nicholas Bird is a past president of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical society, and current medical director of the Center for Hyperbaric Medicine at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health.