Fitness to Dive: Introduction to the Routine Medical Evaluation of Recreational Divers: 2023 Pre-course

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Dr. Bruce Derrick, MD is a undersea & hyperbaric medicine specialist in Durham, NC. He currently practices at Duke Hyperbaric Medicine Clinic and is affiliated with Duke University Hospital. Dr. Derrick is board certified in Emergency Medicine. He is an Assistant Professor of Surgery, Dept. of Emergency Medicine; Attending Physician - Center for Hyperbaric Medicine & Environmental Physiology, and Emergency Department, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC.

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Dr. Nicholas Bird is board certified in family medicine, and fellowship-trained and boarded undersea and hyperbaric medicine. He is the past-president of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, the former Chief Medical Officer and CEO at Diver’s Alert Network (DAN), and the co-author of DAN’s First Aid for Hazardous Marine Life Injuries. Prior to this position, he served as the Medical Director of Hyperbaric Medicine at Dixie Regional Medical Center in St. George, Utah. He completed a diving and hyperbaric medicine fellowship at the University of California San Diego and received his initial hyperbaric training while serving in the United States Air Force as a flight surgeon. An avid diver, he was certified in 1984 and became a PADI Instructor in 1989. His diving and medical interests include remote medicine and he is moving to the Marshall Islands in August to serve as the Chief Medical Officer for the island of Kwajalein.

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Dr. Alleman earned his medical degree and completed his residency as co-chief resident in family practice at Louisiana State University Medical School in Shreveport. He is board-certified in occupational medicine, undersea and hyperbaric medicine and addiction medicine.

Dr. Alleman completed two fellowships: one in hyperbaric medicine at LSU, New Orleans and one in occupational medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

He became interested in hyperbaric medicine while working as an occupational medicine physician in Lafayette, Louisiana. After Hurricane Katrina he recruited a physician from New Orleans who treated commercial divers. To further his own knowledge, Dr. Alleman completed his hyperbaric fellowship and earned board certification in undersea and hyperbaric medicine.

“It’s a wonderful treatment for a very diverse group of conditions,” Dr. Alleman said of hyperbaric medicine. “In many cases it offers a patient their best or only chance at recovery.”

Dr. Alleman was chairman of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society committee that published the UHMS Medical Fitness to Work Guidelines for Multiplace Inside Attendants 1st edition. He is chairman of the Association of Diving Contractors Physician’s Diving Advisory Committee and has been on the faculty of the UHMS fitness to dive course for six years.