Video Blog: Protocols are a Stop Gap

Comment

Comment by Richard on July 8, 2009 at 11:04am

I understand better what UTD means by a "protocol" now. But I'm probably more confused by the "thinking" part then before.

If I lose a mask, or a light, or part or all of my gas, I have certain proceedural expectations (I will end up in front, or the middle, buddied with another "injured" diver, we will share gas during the O2 window parts of the deco etc etc). If my very much "thinking" buddy decides (for a good or a poor reason) to do something different I am now in a bind. Even if their intentions are good, 'most' efficient and quite rational, I am now expected to be someplace and do certain things (as the injured diver) that I am not accustomed to. Yes they might be the "best" decisions for the conditions/environment. But communicating an entirely new course of action is not a simple task. It may very well overwhelm the injured diver with new information they don't have the bandwidth to process. I see protocols (esp for failures) as a baseline common denominator response which is "good enough" for 99% of the situations. They may not be optimal but they are easy to understand and allow a stressed diver to (a certain extent) avoid having to process a huge amount of new information and decisions that his "thinking" teammates might be making.

While I would like to think that divers can be trained to operate rationally underwater, the reality is that many of our responses are a combination of sympathetic nervous responses, rote muscle memory of trained protocols, and a small amount of rational thought. While the rational part can be nurtured, and the sympathetic (fight or flight) response can be dampened, once a rote muscle memory that part is built its very hard to selectively undo. And at least for the "injured diver" they are using most of their rational brain to keep fight or flight responses in check. What they have left can more easily follow a rote muscle memory "program".

I don't want to sound like I'm defending "protocols" too much, but from an injured diver perspective too much and/or novel "thinking" is just confusing and overwhelming. Further comments welcome.

Comment by Lynne Flaherty on July 4, 2009 at 9:22am

I've said this about medical protocols for years . . . they allow relatively novice people to run complex operations, but if you don't understand the assumptions that were made when the protocols were developed, then you won't know when you are facing an exception where something different ought to be done. Always important to understand the "why".