2024 Annual Scientific Meeting

Dick assumed the position of president of the National Board of Diving & Hyperbaric Medical Technology in January, 2009, having previously held this position from 1989-1995. Dick’s background includes service in the British Navy, diving instructor and underwater photographer at the International Underwater Explorers Society and assistant director of the seabed living program ‘Hydrolab’. In 1976, Dick was instrumental in the development of the diver medic program at the Commercial Diving Center, while employed as a saturation diving superintendent with Oceaneering International. Dick taught the diving medicine section from 1976 - 1983 and helped establish the National Association of Diver Medic Technicians, the fore runner of the NBDHMT. He wrote the Board’s first CHT exam. Over the past two decades Dick remains involved in all aspects of undersea and hyperbaric medicine, technology, education and research. His organization has trained over 6,000 healthcare professionals and he has served as a faculty member for the annual NOAA-UHMS Diving Medical Officer Training Course for the past 25 years. Dick has been active within the UHMS, chairing numerous committees and was the UHMS Associates first elected chairman. He heads a research foundation dedicated to the scientific advancement of hyperbaric medicine, and has developed an international consortium that undertakes wide-ranging controlled clinical trials.

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.

 

Geness Koumandakis has been a registered respiratory therapist for 24 years and has been practicing critical care hyperbaric medicine for 22 of those years. She is currently the Hyperbaric Coordinator and Safety Director for LDS Hospital and Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Koumandakis has been instrumental in training fellows from the Duke University hyperbaric fellowship program and has many years of experience as a clinical educator and presenter for various respiratory therapy, nursing, and nurse practitioner programs as well as the University of Utah pulmonary fellowship program. She has been a course instructor for multiple hyperbaric courses, including a course on critical care hyperbaric medicine. Koumandakis has been actively involved in multiple hyperbaric research studies and has co-authored several abstracts, journal articles, and recently co-authored a wound care book chapter. She has presented two of these abstracts at the UHMS conference and is the recipient of the 2019 UHMS Paul C. Baker award for hyperbaric oxygen therapy safety excellence. She currently sits on multiple hyperbaric oversight committees for Intermountain Healthcare and the UHMS.

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.

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.

Jay Clark Buckey, Jr. is an American physician and astronaut who flew aboard one Space Shuttle mission (STS-90) as a Payload Specialist. Buckey holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Cornell University (1977) and an M.D. from Cornell in 1981, interning at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and completing his residence at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.  He was also a flight surgeon with the U.S. Air Force Reserve for 8 years.  Currently, Dr. Buckey is a Professor of Medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and Directs the Hyperbaric Medicine program at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.

Dr. Weaver received a BS in Engineering Science from Arizona State University followed by medical school from the University of Arizona. He served a rotating internship in the US Navy, then went through the medical officer’s course in Undersea and Submarine medicine and was an Undersea Medical Officer on the USS Canopis (AS-34) for two years. After discharged he served in the Naval Reserves with SEAL Team 1-3-5 for a few years.  After discharge from Active Duty he trained in Internal Medicine, with fellowship training in pulmonary and critical care at the University of Utah. After completion of fellowship he became the Medical Director of Hyperbaric Medicine and Co-director of the Shock Trauma Respiratory ICU at the Level One trauma center, LDS Hospital, Salt Lake City, Utah for 20 years. He was a co-investigator for the ARDSnet of the NIH and was the principle investigator of a randomized controlled trial of hyperbaric oxygen for acute carbon monoxide poisoning, published by the New England Journal of Medicine. He is a former president of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society. He has authored and co-authored hundreds of papers, abstracts and book chapters. For 10 years he had a senior leadership role in the DoD effort to conduct blinded randomized trials of hyperbaric oxygen for post-concussive syndrome due to War-related mild traumatic brain injury. Research activities include study of neural auto-antibodies following carbon monoxide poisoning and a randomized trial of hyperbaric oxygen for sequelae months to years after brain injury. He enjoys off-road UTV and adventure motorcycle riding, SCUBA diving, and spending time with his family.

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. 

U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Pablo Medina, current Program Director for the San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium Undersea & Hyperbaric Medicine Fellowship Program and Medical Director for the Brooke Army Medical Center Division of Undersea & Hyperbaric Medicine.

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.

Dr Bryson started off his diving medicine interest at Discovery Bay Hyperbaric Unit in Jamaica whilst he was working in Kingston in the very early days of his medical career.  He then moved to Plymouth (UK) where he worked as a volunteer at the Diving Diseases Research Centre for 6 years whilst he completed his training to be a GP.

He then managed to turn his hobby into a career and carried on working at DDRC for the next 25 years being the Medical Director there for his last 11 years, prior to leaving to take up a job at International SOS in December 2010.  In 2023 TAC Healthcare took over the Aberdeen International SOS business and he is now their Medical Director of Diving Services.

He has published extensively in specialist medical journals, been the medical advisor to Sport Diving organisations in the UK, sits on the DMAC, EDTC, UK Sport Diving Medical Committee and EUBS committees.  He has also sat on several IMCA working groups.

• DMAC is Diving Medical Advisory Committee (advising the Global Diving Industry)
• EDTC is the European Diving Technical Committee
• EUBS is the European Underwater and Baromedical Society
• IMCA is the International Marine Contractors Association

Dr. Richard Moon earned BSc and MD degrees at McGill University. He trained in internal medicine and biomedical engineering at the University of Toronto, then in pulmonary and critical care medicine, followed by anesthesiology at Duke University. He joined the Duke University faculty in 1983. He is Professor of Anesthesiology, Professor of Medicine and Medical Director of the Duke Center for Hyperbaric Medicine & Environmental Physiology. His research has included physiology of immersion and predictors of arterial PCO2 during underwater exercise. He has been particularly interested in causes and prevention of immersion pulmonary edema, use of an experimental breathing gas (perfluoromethane) to decrease decompression requirements after heliox dives, mechanisms of death during triathlons, causes of perioperative opioid-induced respiratory depression, and improved monitoring techniques for monitoring patients to detect it. His awards include the Mentorship Award from the AMA-Women Physicians Congress Physician Mentor Recognition Program, Leonard Palumbo Jr, MD Faculty Achievement Award for compassionate patient care and excellence in the teaching and mentoring of young physicians, Duke awards for Excellence in Medical Student Education and two awards as Duke Anesthesiology Teacher of the Year.

 

Program Officer leading Undersea Medicine Program: The goal of this program is to develop improved methods, models, treatments and devices for understanding, preventing or mitigating factors that negatively impact divers and submariners. Solutions should extend warfighting capability during undersea operations to maximize freedom of action and warfighter dominance.

Dr. Sean Hardy is a graduate of University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, and completed Emergency Medicine residency and Hyperbaric Medicine fellowship at Louisiana State University in New Orleans. He holds academic positions with both Louisiana State University as well as Tulane University in the teaching of medical students, Emergency Medicine residents, and Hyperbaric Medicine fellows. In his 21 years with LSU, he has served in numerous leadership positions including Associate Director of Emergency Services and the Clinical Director of Emergency Preparedness. Dr Hardy has over 25 years in education, with continued emphasis on out of hospital medicine in both civilian and law enforcement/military contexts. Currently, he serves on the National Board of Diving and Hyperbaric Medical Technologists, where he has special emphasis on diver medic education and standards. As part of a remote diving medicine response team, he has been involved in the care of numerous complex diving injury cases, and has been a national level lecturer on management of diving injuries and illnesses. In his free time, he continues to be an active diver, martial artist, and sworn tactical medicine provider.

Dr. Gregory is a second career physician, currently in Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine fellowship at Duke Health after completing primary specialty training in Emergency Medicine.

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.