Mike, let's be fair about this. Veterinary surgeons for thoracic surgery (after loss of Jerry Leaf) and chemists for running perfusion machines were also used during your tenure managing biomedical affairs at Alcor two decades ago. You trained and utilized lay people to do all kinds procedures that would ordinarily be done by medical or paramedical professionals, including establishing airways, mechanical circulation, and I.V. administration of fluids and medications. Manuals provided to lay students even included directions for doing femoral cutdown surgery.
http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/1990manual.html
The good cases that you were able to do with lay help (and being only a dialysis technician by credential yourself) are the stuff of cryonics legend. That was how cryonics was done back then. With the resources that were available then, and the need to provide cryonics response over vast geographic areas, using trained lay cryonicists was the most effective way to deliver cryonics care for many years. Some history of this is discussed here
http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/professionals.html
In the 2000s Alcor began to supplement trained lay cryonicist teams by deploying a staff paramedic to cases whenever possible. In the 2010s, Alcor began using Suspended Animation, Inc., more extensively. As announced here,
http://www.alcor.org/blog/?p=2174
Alcor policy is now to use Suspended Animation, Inc.., (SA) for all cases in the continental U.S. outside of Arizona which SA can reach in time. Local trained lay teams are now only used as first responders, bridging time between notification of emergencies and arrival of SA.
The significance of this is that SA now uses board certified cardiovascular surgeons and certified clinical perfusionists on almost all cases. I've met two of SA's contract cardiovascular surgeons, one of whom trained under Michael DeBakey. These are top-rank professionals who go out on cryonics standbys, and get cryonics patients on cardiopulmonary bypass faster than ever before in cryonics. They established fem-fem bypass on one patient last year in only 15 minutes.
http://www.alcor.org/blog/?p=2175
Another patient was placed on bypass only 7 minutes after arrival in SA's vehicle using emergency median sternotomy, never before done in cryonics.
http://www.alcor.org/blog/?p=2267
These are professional surgeons and perfusionists who do median sternotomies and cannulations so fast that in their day jobs they actually save patients who suffer cardiac arrest from fixable causes (e.g. "fatal" DVTs). This is now the level of care available under ideal circumstances in cryonics.
In Alcor's O.R., Alcor is presently evaluating and training two board certified general surgeons to supplement the veterinary surgeon and neurosurgeon who have been used by Alcor for the past 15 years. Alcor has transitioned toward utilization of professionals whenever possible or practical. There are now more medical professionals doing the work of cryonics than ever before in the history of cryonics; not just scientists and technicians, but actual clinicians.
You are also mistaken, at least partially, about utilization of animal models in training. Even though professional surgeons and perfusionists already have extensive and ongoing clinical experience, SA uses a porcine model to train its contract surgeons, perfusionists, and other personnel in the specific procedures of cryonics.
There are shortcomings to this model. Contract clinicians are extremely skilled at specific procedures that must be done, but they are not cryonicists. For example, they don't understand cerebral ischemic injury, its mechanisms, and significance in the context of cryonics. This can hypothetically lead to difficulties understanding and managing cases with moderate periods of warm ischemia that would ordinarily be "written off" in conventional medicine. Cryonicist involvement is still essential. However on balance, as measured by the speed and competent handling of standbys and transports in which they have been involved, participation of cardiovascular surgeons and perfusionists has been very positive. I hope we can continue to afford it.
Brian, when you say: "Mike, let's be fair about this. Veterinary surgeons for thoracic surgery (after loss of Jerry Leaf) and chemists for running perfusion machines were also used during your tenure managing biomedical affairs at Alcor two decades ago. You trained and utilized lay people to do all kinds procedures that would ordinarily be done by medical or paramedical professionals, including establishing airways, mechanical circulation, and I.V. administration of fluids and medications. Manuals provided to lay students even included directions for...
I searched but did not find any discussion comparing the merits of the two major cryonics providers in the US, so I figured it might be productive to start such a discussion myself by posing the question to the community: which provider would you choose, all things being equal: Alcor or the Cryonics Institute?
From my research, Alcor comes across as the flasher, higher-end option, while CI seems more like a Mom-and-Pop operation, having only two full-time employees. Alcor also costs substantially more, with its neurosuspension option alone running ~$80k, compared with CI's whole-body preservation cost of ~$30k. While Alcor has received far more publicity than CI, much of it has been negative. The Ted Williams fiasco is probably the most prominent example, although the accuser in that case seems anything but trustworthy. However, Alcor remains something of a shadowy organization that many within the cryonics community are suspicious of. Mike Darwin, a former Alcor president, has written at length on both organizations at http://www.chronopause.com, and on the whole, at least based on what I've read, Alcor comes across looking less competent, less trustworthy, and less open than CI.
One issue in particular is funding. Even though Alcor costs much more, it has many more expenses, and Darwin and others have questioned the long term financial stability of the organization. Ralph Merkle, an Alcor board member and elder statesman of cryonics who has made significant contributions to other fields like nanotechnology, a field he practically invented, and encryption, with Merkle's Puzzles, has essentially admitted(1) that Alcor hasn't managed its money very well:
"Some Alcor members have wondered why rich Alcor members have not donated more money to Alcor. The major reason is that rich Alcor members are rich because they know how to manage money, and they know that Alcor traditionally has managed money poorly. Why give any significant amount of money to an organization that has no fiscal discipline? It will just spend it, and put itself right back into the same financial hole it’s already in.
As a case in point, consider Alcor’s efforts over the year to create an “endowment fund” to stabilize its operating budget. These efforts have always ended with Alcor spending the money on various useful activities. These range from research projects to subsidizing our existing members — raising dues and minimums is a painful thing to do, and the Board is always reluctant to do this even when the financial data is clear. While each such project is individually worthy and has merit, collectively the result has been to thwart the effort to create a lasting endowment and leave Alcor in a financially weak position."
Such an acknowledgement, though appreciated, is frankly disturbing, considering that members depend utterly on these organizations remaining operational and solvent for decades, perhaps even centuries, after they are deanimated.
Meanwhile, CI carries on merrily, well under the radar, seemingly without any drama or intrigue. And Ben Best seems to have very good credentials in the cryonics community, and Eliezer, one of the most prominent public advocates of cryonics, is signed up with them. Yet the tiny size of the operation still fills me with unease concerning its prospects for long-term survivability.
So with all of that said, besides cost, what factors would lead or have led you to pick one organization over the other?
1: http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/CryopreservationFundingAndInflation.html