Gene Hobbs | |
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Born | |
Occupation(s) | medical simulation coordinator, Certified Hyperbaric Technologist, technical diver |
Eugene Weston Hobbs II, known as Gene Hobbs (born November 28, 1973) is an American technical diver and founding board member of the non-profit Rubicon Foundation. Hobbs has served as medical officer for the Woodville Karst Plain Project since 2004 and was named the 2010 Divers Alert Network/ Rolex Diver of the year. Hobbs was a hyperbaric technologist and simulation coordinator at Duke Medical Center before taking a position as the Director of Simulation for the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and Clinical Instructor in the Department of Pediatrics. As of 2018, Hobbs is the business manager for the UNC Health Care Department of Neurosurgery.
Hobbs was born on November 28, 1973, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he attended Terry Sanford High School and graduated in 1992. He then attended the North Carolina State University (NCSU) where he majored in business management with a human resources concentration. While in college, Hobbs began volunteering at the F.G. Hall Hyperbaric Laboratory at Duke University Medical Center. Hobbs became a Certified Hyperbaric Technologist in 1997. [1] [2] He was awarded credentials as a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator in 2015. [3] Hobbs earned an MBA with a concentration in healthcare from Fayetteville State University in 2020.
Hobbs was certified in scuba diving by H. Larry Brown at NCSU in 1993. Following this first class, he began assisting the diving classes while continuing his diving education. [4] Hobbs was certified as a cave diver and NAUI instructor in 1997. [2]
At the Duke F.G. Hall Lab in 1997, Hobbs worked on a project to evaluate emergency oxygen rebreathers for use in the delivery of first aid oxygen to diving accident victims. [5] This work culminated in the testing of Hobbs' prototype and subsequent marketing of the Remote Emergency Oxygen Delivery System (REMO2) by the Divers Alert Network (DAN) from January 1999 – August 2001. [6] [7] This product was introduced at the Med-Trade convention and named the 1999 "Med-Trade new product of the year" however problems with manufacturing capability ended the project. [8]
Hobbs participated in other projects related to aging divers, [9] breath-hold diving, [10] and extra-vehicular activity. [11] [12] [13] Hobbs serves as a member of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society diving committee that shapes guidance related to diving medical safety. [14]
Education in hyperbaric medicine related topics via inter-institutional simulations has allowed Hobbs to tie his passion for diving with his career in medical training. [15] [16]
Hobbs has made significant regular contributions to Wikipedia's scuba diving articles, particularly to their referencing. He was joint author of a 2009 article advocating participation in Wikipedia as a means of increasing awareness of diving medicine. [17]
Hobbs has served as medical officer for the Woodville Karst Plain Project since 2004. From this position, he has supported the medical communication and logistics for the team's divers. [18]
Hobbs began working as the Medical Simulation Coordinator for Duke University Medical Center's Human Simulation and Patient Safety Center in 2001. [19] Here his role in a young field involved development of resources for the program, [20] [21] curriculum development, [22] and establishing the role he would provide within this new field. [23]
In 2007, Hobbs was part of the development team for a first person video game called 3DiTeams out of a collaboration between Duke University Medical Center and Virtual Heroes, Inc. and used for medical education and team training. [24] [25] [26] The project was unveiled to the general public in a workshop entitled "3DiTeams – Team Training in a Virtual Interactive Environment" hosted by the American Society of Anesthesiologists Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California, on October 16, 2007. [27]
Their team has continued to develop and test new training and assessment methods for healthcare providers and research personnel. [28] [29] [30] [31]
In 2014, Hobbs joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine as Director of Simulation and Clinical Instructor in the Department of Pediatrics. [32] His role at UNC has involved patient safety projects as well as development of unique educational opportunities. [33] [34] The quality improvement and patient safety initiatives include simulations for health system wide TeamSTEPPS [35] and Code Sepsis [36] projects as well as more specific work with postpartum hemorrhage [37] and trauma. [38]
Work with interprofessional teams is one area in which he has continued to specialize. [35] In 2016, their team collaboration with North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine was recognized by the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC) and Association for Prevention Teaching and Research when the team's One Health case submission was selected in a national competition. [15] Hobbs advocates for the use of standardized patients to portray other team members or having other clinicians as faculty if interprofessional learners are not an option. [39]
In addition to his role in graduate medical education, Hobbs also created a course for UNC undergraduate students to participate in simulation activities throughout the health system. [40]
Hobbs authored a book chapter on the role of a simulation operations specialist in research that was published in 2016. [41] In 2017, the UNC Anesthesia team including Hobbs was awarded the "First Place Research Abstract at the 17th Annual International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare". [42] He received a plaque recognizing his "contributions and service" to the Society for Simulation in Healthcare and Simulation Operations and Technology Section in 2018. [43]
Hobbs left his simulation director role in 2017 to take on a role as business manager for the UNC Health Care Department of Neurosurgery. [44] In addition to the day-to-day operations of the Department of Neurosurgery, Hobbs serves on a committee providing oversight their educational laboratory focused primarily on cadaveric and task oriented simulation training. He also began blogging in the Society for Human Resource Management Blog in 2017 and concentrates his posts on simulation, workplace safety, and workforce accommodations. [45]
In 2002, Hobbs joined with divers Brian Armstrong and James Wagner in the formation of the Rubicon Foundation to further diving education, research and conservation efforts. [46] The first major project Rubicon started was the Rubicon Research Repository created to aggregate often hard to find literature in the fields of diving and hyperbaric medicine. This included scanning creation of metadata for many documents that were not indexed in any database as well as negotiation of copyright permissions with the organizations to make these items available to the public. [47] Hobbs received a "Special Achievement Award" from the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society for his creation of the Rubicon Research Repository in June 2005. [48] This work has continued and grown in their effort to create greater communication and collaboration between the diving medical community and divers. [49] [50] [51]
Dr. Simon Mitchell has recognized Hobbs "alongside Dick Clarke as CHTs who have made spectacular contributions to the field". [52] As a result of his work with the Rubicon Research Repository, Hobbs was named the 2010 Divers Alert Network/ Rolex Diver of the year. [1] This was the 22nd time this award has been presented to someone that has "contributed significantly to dive safety or the DAN mission". [1] Later that year, Hobbs began diving a rebreather having completed his training with Gregg Stanton.
The B-25c Mitchell bomber was ditched on 4 April 1943 and remained 45 metres (148 ft) below the surface of Lake Murray (South Carolina) for 60 years. [53] The recovery effort was headed by Dr. Robert Seigler and supervised by Gary Larkins of the Air Pirates. Hobbs participated in the recovery effort with divers from Association of Underwater Explorers (AUE), the Rubicon Foundation, and Woodville Karst Plain Project in 2005. [53] The project was documented by the History Channel and televised on their show Mega Movers. [54] The plane is being preserved by the Southern Museum of Flight in Birmingham, Alabama. [55]
Hobbs teamed up with Keith Gault of the United States Navy Experimental Diving Unit to apply probabilistic models developed by Dr Wayne Gerth to the understanding of problems facing the technical diving population. [56] This project is ongoing and included various breathing gases and decompression styles. [57]
In 2010, Rubicon started Project Pink Tank with a goal to improve the knowledge available to breast cancer survivors about their engagement in scuba diving. [58] [59] The methods applied for this project will also influence further diving medical research. [59]
Hobbs met his wife Becky while working in the Human Simulation and Patient Safety Center and they were married at Anse Chastanet in October 2004. [60] [61]
In 2009, Hobbs and his wife lost their son Andrew who was born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia after thirty days. [62] [63] [64] Their second son was born in 2011. They currently reside in Pittsboro, North Carolina. [2]
Narcosis while diving is a reversible alteration in consciousness that occurs while diving at depth. It is caused by the anesthetic effect of certain gases at high partial pressure. The Greek word νάρκωσις (narkōsis), "the act of making numb", is derived from νάρκη (narkē), "numbness, torpor", a term used by Homer and Hippocrates. Narcosis produces a state similar to drunkenness, or nitrous oxide inhalation. It can occur during shallow dives, but does not usually become noticeable at depths less than 30 metres (98 ft).
Trimix is a breathing gas consisting of oxygen, helium and nitrogen and is used in deep commercial diving, during the deep phase of dives carried out using technical diving techniques, and in advanced recreational diving.
Decompression sickness is a medical condition caused by dissolved gases emerging from solution as bubbles inside the body tissues during decompression. DCS most commonly occurs during or soon after a decompression ascent from underwater diving, but can also result from other causes of depressurisation, such as emerging from a caisson, decompression from saturation, flying in an unpressurised aircraft at high altitude, and extravehicular activity from spacecraft. DCS and arterial gas embolism are collectively referred to as decompression illness.
A breathing gas is a mixture of gaseous chemical elements and compounds used for respiration. Air is the most common and only natural breathing gas, but other mixtures of gases, or pure oxygen, are also used in breathing equipment and enclosed habitats. Oxygen is the essential component for any breathing gas. Breathing gases for hyperbaric use have been developed to improve on the performance of ordinary air by reducing the risk of decompression sickness, reducing the duration of decompression, reducing nitrogen narcosis or allowing safer deep diving.
In-water recompression (IWR) or underwater oxygen treatment is the emergency treatment of decompression sickness (DCS) by returning the diver underwater to help the gas bubbles in the tissues, which are causing the symptoms, to resolve. It is a procedure that exposes the diver to significant risk which should be compared with the risk associated with the available options and balanced against the probable benefits. Some authorities recommend that it is only to be used when the time to travel to the nearest recompression chamber is too long to save the victim's life; others take a more pragmatic approach and accept that in some circumstances IWR is the best available option. The risks may not be justified for case of mild symptoms likely to resolve spontaneously, or for cases where the diver is likely to be unsafe in the water, but in-water recompression may be justified in cases where severe outcomes are likely if not recompressed, if conducted by a competent and suitably equipped team.
Diving medicine, also called undersea and hyperbaric medicine (UHB), is 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. Diving medical practitioners are also expected to be competent in the examination of divers and potential divers to determine fitness to dive.
Diver rescue, usually following an accident, is the process of avoiding or limiting further exposure to diving hazards and bringing a diver to a place of safety. A safe place generally means a place where the diver cannot drown, such as a boat or dry land, where first aid can be administered and from which professional medical treatment can be sought. In the context of surface supplied diving, the place of safety for a diver with a decompression obligation is often the diving bell.
Rubicon Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit organization devoted to contributing to the interdependent dynamic between research, exploration, science and education. The foundation, started in 2002, is located in Durham, North Carolina and is primarily supported by donations and grants. Funding has included the Office of Naval Research from 2008 to 2010. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher has provided pro bono services to assist in copyright searches and support.
Peter B. Bennett was the founder and a president and CEO of the Divers Alert Network (DAN), a non-profit organization devoted to assisting scuba divers in need. He was a professor of anesthesiology at Duke University Medical Center, and was the Senior Director of the Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology at Duke. Bennett is recognized as a leading authority on the effects of high pressure on human physiology.
Capt. Edward Deforest Thalmann, USN (ret.) was an American hyperbaric medicine specialist who was principally responsible for developing the current United States Navy dive tables for mixed-gas diving, which are based on his eponymous Thalmann Algorithm (VVAL18). At the time of his death, Thalmann was serving as assistant medical director of the Divers Alert Network (DAN) and an assistant clinical professor in anesthesiology at Duke University's Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology.
The United States Navy Experimental Diving Unit is the primary source of diving and hyperbaric operational guidance for the US Navy. It is located within the Naval Support Activity Panama City in Panama City Beach, Bay County, Florida.
Hydrox, a gas mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, is occasionally used as an experimental breathing gas in very deep diving. It allows divers to descend several hundred metres. Hydrox has been used experimentally in surface supplied, saturation, and scuba diving, both on open circuit and with closed circuit rebreathers.
Richard Rutkowski is a pioneer in the fields of hyperbaric medicine, diving medicine and diver training, especially in relation to the use of breathing gases.
National Board of Diving and Hyperbaric Medical Technology (NBDHMT), formally known as the National Association of Diving Technicians, is a non-profit organization devoted to the education and certification of qualified personnel in the fields of diving and hyperbaric medicine.
Neal Pollock is a Canadian academic and diver. Born in Edmonton, Canada he completed a bachelor's degree in zoology; the first three years at University of Alberta and the final year at the University of British Columbia. After completing a master's degree he then served as diving officer at University of British Columbia for almost five years. He then moved to Florida and completed a doctorate in exercise physiology/environmental physiology at Florida State University.
Richard Deimel Vann is an American academic and diver.
John R. Clarke is an American scientist, private pilot and author. He is currently the Scientific Director at the United States Navy Experimental Diving Unit (NEDU). Clarke is recognized as a leading authority on underwater breathing apparatus engineering.
The history of scuba diving is closely linked with the history of the equipment. By the turn of the twentieth century, two basic architectures for underwater breathing apparatus had been pioneered; open-circuit surface supplied equipment where the diver's exhaled gas is vented directly into the water, and closed-circuit breathing apparatus where the diver's carbon dioxide is filtered from the exhaled breathing gas, which is then recirculated, and more gas added to replenish the oxygen content. Closed circuit equipment was more easily adapted to scuba in the absence of reliable, portable, and economical high pressure gas storage vessels. By the mid-twentieth century, high pressure cylinders were available and two systems for scuba had emerged: open-circuit scuba where the diver's exhaled breath is vented directly into the water, and closed-circuit scuba where the carbon dioxide is removed from the diver's exhaled breath which has oxygen added and is recirculated. Oxygen rebreathers are severely depth limited due to oxygen toxicity risk, which increases with depth, and the available systems for mixed gas rebreathers were fairly bulky and designed for use with diving helmets. The first commercially practical scuba rebreather was designed and built by the diving engineer Henry Fleuss in 1878, while working for Siebe Gorman in London. His self contained breathing apparatus consisted of a rubber mask connected to a breathing bag, with an estimated 50–60% oxygen supplied from a copper tank and carbon dioxide scrubbed by passing it through a bundle of rope yarn soaked in a solution of caustic potash. During the 1930s and all through World War II, the British, Italians and Germans developed and extensively used oxygen rebreathers to equip the first frogmen. In the U.S. Major Christian J. Lambertsen invented a free-swimming oxygen rebreather. In 1952 he patented a modification of his apparatus, this time named SCUBA, an acronym for "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus," which became the generic English word for autonomous breathing equipment for diving, and later for the activity using the equipment. After World War II, military frogmen continued to use rebreathers since they do not make bubbles which would give away the presence of the divers. The high percentage of oxygen used by these early rebreather systems limited the depth at which they could be used due to the risk of convulsions caused by acute oxygen toxicity.
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