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“First, Do No Harm”: Old And New Paradigms In Prehospital Resuscitation In The Aquatic Domain, John H. Pearn, Richard Charles Franklin

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education

The balance between benefit and risk is central to the work of all those involved in aquatic services. The Hippocratic exhortation of Primum non nocere, “First, do no harm,” has a history of over 2000 years. Superficially, all would support this dictum, but harm can result from inaction. The balance between no or little intervention on the one hand and proactive intervention with iatrogenic risk on the other is complex and enduring. Risk implies that one does not have all the information available to know the exact likelihood of an outcome, a common situation involving rescue, first aid, and …