Certifying the uncertifiable

[Aussie]

I would like others opinion on this issue.

Sometime ago I witnessed a lady who started her OW certification at a local dive shop. It didnt take long before the instructor noticed that the lady was unfit to be certifed as she mentally unstable and he refused to certify her. She went to another local dive store and asked about being certified. She was also refused as the instructor called the other shop and gave them the heads up of her arrival.

This same lady returned 6 months later and she was certified OW diver.

Does it come down to in some locations that if you fork out the money you instantly get a Certification card?

What would happen if you happen to be "buddied up" with someone like this?

Aussie

[Advokat]

Ok...my first course OW was done in Thailand over 2 days. 4 boat dives and I watched the DVD in the hotel over night. Didnt get to read the book and wasnt given it at all. Back then it looked normal to me as I had no idea. As I signed to do AOW in Australia and going trough various skills and exersises I realised that I missed out on a lot of things. I picked them up by doing a lot of diving and did more than 70 dives over 6 months. I know feel much more confident and believe that 80-90% comes from experience and what you learn diving. I also failed an OW exam...but by reading and completing AOW and Rescue course + regular diving has given me a lot

In some locations you are able "to get certified" for money with out appropriate training and learning-it depends on who is the instrucior and to the degree of his honesty.

It is very hard to buddy up with someone like that. Some time ago I was diving at South West Rocks and there was a woman in our group, who had the most expensive diving gear and she was telling us that she is a very experienced diver and dived all over the world. She had issues on a every single dive. She had problems with her ears, so she surfaced with her buddy in deep blue; they were 50m or so away from the boat and she refused to swim back to the boat, so her buddy had to drag her. On the other dive she got on to the different boat in the end of the dive and wasn't going to swim the distance of 20m either. She left her buddy in the water and just decided that she will get on to another boat.

I will not buddy up with someone like that, I prefer to buddy up with someone I have dived before or someone who shares similar attitudes as I do. I don't want to ruin my dive (especially if I travel far) because of someone's mis judging of their abilities or if someone is so lazy about swimming extra 20m

[ScubaToys Larry]

Well, now you are in Australia... so maybe life is a bit different... But let/s look at this from an extremely objective point of view.

The big questions is, who has the right to make the judgment call that this person is too mentally unstable to dive? An easy answer is the instructor... but then can he say, this person is not smart enough to dive? Where does he draw his personal line... must have an IQ of 80... 100... 165???

See and state side - you could open up a whole legal can of worms and be facing a lawsuit for discrimination. Criteria has already been set up for who can get certified - and that criteria is from the certifying agency. So if, for example, it was a Padi class... did they pass the test? Did they perform the learning objectives for all the skills?

Making personal calls, at least in the states, carries with it a little more legal risk - as the criteria has already been set up at an international level - why is a sole instructor changing it...

It is an intersting topic for instructors - at what point, even if someone did the skills, do you just say... er.. no. I'm not going to certify you.

With Naui that's pretty easy as our final certifying criteria is pretty simple. If our child had the same ability, would we certify them... kind of always give you an out...

[Charlotte Smith]

Just exactly why the instructor card is not on the horizon for me....good luck with that guys!

[Advokat]

Originally Posted by ScubaToys Larry

The big questions is, who has the right to make the judgment call that this person is too mentally unstable to dive? An easy answer is the instructor... but then can he say, this person is not smart enough to dive? Where does he draw his personal line... must have an IQ of 80... 100... 165???

Even though there are certain standards set by a certifying agency (PADI, SDI, SSI and etc), most dive shops set higher standards for education and etc. (eg. I know a dive shop, whose policy is that to do tech courses trough them you need to be at least Rescue certified). In the end it the dive shop and the instructor who are taking responsibility for a particular diver. You cant' measure someones diving performance based on IQ as you can't determine how each one will perform in a critical situation. You can be stupid and still be able to dive or can be super smart and be a terrible diver. I believe, that being responsible for your self is far more important and being honest with judging your personal abilities.

[divingmedic]

Just because someone might be mentally ill does not make them unfit for diving. Being crazy is not against the law. I have seen many people that are Bi-Polar, Schizophrenic that are really smart.

[BobbyWombat]

The OW requirements are a set of minimum acceptable standards for knowledge and skill. The cert agencies certainly want to keep diving safe, but they are also (as I can't find anything that indicates otherwise) for-profit organizations (somebody please correct me if I'm wrong).

So, it would seem that the approach some cert agencies take is to make the standards as easy and fast as possible, while still being safe, to appeal to the largest customer base.

Maybe the standards need to be set higher. This has been discussed endlessly on many forums....so let me pose this question to any instructors out there to care to answer:

I'm curious how much push back PADI, NAUI and others get from instructors to set the standards higher, or give more discretion to the individual instructor when assessing overall suitability for diving. OR... is the general consensus from instructors that the standards are OK, and as long as somebody answers the questions and does the drills, they are 100% ready to dive and will make a safe diving buddy for a randomly paired stranger.

[BobbyWombat]

Originally Posted by ScubaToys Larry

With Naui that's pretty easy as our final certifying criteria is pretty simple. If our child had the same ability, would we certify them... kind of always give you an out...

Larry, I see your point here, and it is well taken. This is definitely a tricky question, and I don't disagree with what you are saying.

Let me play devil's advocate and turn your cert criteria on it's head though:

In addition to asking "If our child had the same ability, would we certify them?" perhaps there would be value in asking "Would I allow this person to be my child's diving buddy?"

[ScubaToys Larry]

Originally Posted by BobbyWombat

Larry, I see your point here, and it is well taken. This is definitely a tricky question, and I don't disagree with what you are saying.

Let me play devil's advocate and turn your cert criteria on it's head though:

In addition to asking "If our child had the same ability, would we certify them?" perhaps there would be value in asking "Would I allow this person to be my child's diving buddy?"

Yes, that's the criteria throughout. When certifying a rescue diver, would you feel comfortable if your child had a problem and this was the only person around to help? As a course director, I sign people off as instructors, and tests, skills, all that is graded - but also in the end, I get to make the call; "Would I let this person teach my kid?"

It's kind of a nice tool to have to defend any decision you make without the impending suit of "My client passed all the required skills - so you must issue his card" type of issues.

[ReefHound]

Originally Posted by Aussie

Sometime ago I witnessed a lady who started her OW certification at a local dive shop. It didnt take long before the instructor noticed that the lady was unfit to be certifed as she mentally unstable and he refused to certify her. She went to another local dive store and asked about being certified. She was also refused as the instructor called the other shop and gave them the heads up of her arrival.

This same lady returned 6 months later and she was certified OW diver.

There seems to be an implied suggestion that this woman should not have been certified and the last instructor just took the money and looked the other way. I doubt this is the case.

From the story, it appears that the first instructor made a judgment on the woman's mental stability. We won't even get into what criteria he used or qualifications he has to make such an assessment. Sounds like the second instructor just went with the first instructor's assessment and didn't even enroll her in a class.

No indication here that the last instructor knew any of this history or saw anything unusual about her. Given that mental stability is not a constant, maybe she showed no instability? Maybe she was now on meds and doing perfectly fine? Maybe she was previously stressed out over events in her life and was now over it? Maybe she was never unstable in the first place and the first instructor made a bad call?