Dr. DeVault’s Medical Examiner of Divers certificate

Dr. DeVault is certified in the field of dive medicine, also called undersea and hyperbaric medicine (UHB), by the Undersea & Hyperbaric Medical Society.

Dive medicine involves the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of conditions caused by humans entering the undersea environment. It includes the effects on the body of pressure on gases, the diagnosis and treatment of conditions caused by marine hazards, and how relationships of a diver’s fitness to dive affect a diver’s safety.

Dr. DeVault snorkeling off Looe Key

Hyperbaric medicine is a corollary field associated with diving, since recompression in a hyperbaric chamber is used as a treatment for two of the most significant diving related illnesses, and arterial gas embolism.

Dive medicine deals with medical research on issues of diving, the prevention of diving disorders, treatment of diving accidents and diving fitness. The field includes the effect of breathing gases and their contaminants under high pressure on the human body and the relationship between the state of physical and psychological health of the diver and safety.

In diving accidents it is common for multiple disorders to occur together and interact with each other, both causatively and as complications.

Diving medicine is a branch of both occupational and sports medicine and is an important part of diver education. Dr. DeVault offers commercial and recreational dive physicals as part of this specialty.

Primary Source: Wikipedia