Dr. Simon Mitchell

Simon is an anaesthesiologist and diving physician based in Auckland, New Zealand. His diving career has spanned many disciplines including sport, scientific, commercial, and military diving. He remains an avid diver, and uses a Mk15.5 closed circuit rebreather to pursue his interest in deep wrecks. Simon has devoted much of his career to diving medicine and has treated more than 400 cases of decompression illness. His PhD research addressed embolic brain injury, and he is widely published in the international diving medical literature. He recently co-authored the second edition of Deeper into Diving with John Lippmann, and co-authored 2 chapters on decompression illness in the most recent edition of Bennett and Elliott. He is Vice President of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine Society (UHMS), and Chairman of the Society’s Diving Committee. Simon’s current research interests include the pathophysiology and treatment of decompression illness and, in particular, the pathophysiology of inner ear decompression illness; a problem that is emerging as a particular hazard of deep bounce diving.