company-designated physician. Section 20-B, paragraph 3 of the POEA Contract provides:   3. xxx xxx If a doctor appointed by the seafarer disagrees with the assessment, a third doctor may be agreed jointly between the employer and the seafarer. The third doctors decision shall be final and binding on both parties. It is beyond cavil that it is the company-designated physician who is entrusted with the task of assessing the seamans disability. But under the aforecited provision, when the seamans private physician disagrees with the assessment of the company-designated physician, as here, a third doctors opinion may be availed of in determining his disability. This however was not resorted to by the parties. As such, the credibility of the findings of their respective doctors was properly evaluated by the NLRC.   The Court has applied the Labor Code concept of permanent total disability to the case of seafarers. In a catena of cases,[10]the Court declared that disability should not be understood more on its medical significance but on the loss of earning capacity.Permanent total disability means disablement of an employee to earn wages in the same kind of work, or work of similar nature that he was trained for or accustomed to perform, or any kind of work which a person of his mentality and attainment could do. In addition, the Court in GSIS v. Cadiz[11] and Ijares v. CA[12] held that permanent disability is the inability of a worker to perform his job for more than 120 days, regardless of whether or not he loses the use of any part of his body.   Here, petitioner suffered from Staphylococcal bacteremia, a type of bacteria which usually infects the skin entering the bloodstream. Staphylococci normally grow in the nose and on the skin of 20% to 30% of healthy adults (and less commonly in the mouth; mammary glands; and urinary, intestinal, and upper respiratory tracts). These bacteria do not harm most of the time.However, a break in the skin, burn, or other injury may allow the bacteria to penetrate the bodys defenses and cause infection.Commonly, staphylococcal infections produce collections of pus (abscesses), which can appear not only on the skin but also in internal organs. If properly treated with antibiotics, most healthy people who develop staphylococcal infections recover fully within a short time. [13]