ACLS- just a title

[MrBooger]

Do any of you ever feel like ACLS Certification is just a title and doesn't mean you actually know what you're doing. I have some co-workers that honestly I don't know how they passed the course. I'll give them a scenario and they seem clueless. Any of you feel the same way?

 

[Akulahawk]

Do any of you ever feel like ACLS Certification is just a title and doesn't mean you actually know what you're doing. I have some co-workers that honestly I don't know how they passed the course. I'll give them a scenario and they seem clueless. Any of you feel the same way?

There is a reason why I refer to those courses as "merit badge" courses...

 

[NYMedic828]

ACLS is a guideline to be supplemented by informed clinical judgement. It isn't a replacement for sufficient education and experience...

It is more of a protocol in essence. An algorithm is all it is.

Does it really matter though? Any informed provider is aware that ACLS is smoke and mirrors. Outside of antidsyrthmics and electrical therapy it has no proven benefits. It's basically a big trial and error system that changes every 3-6 years.

It's also quite the cash cow, as is everything to AHA.

 

[usalsfyre]

ACLS starts with a disclaimer that it doesn't "certify" you in anything. Part of the issue with AHA is they have beat instructor knowledge out of the course.

 

[VFlutter]

ACLS is definitely just a title in the hospital. Most floors push their RNs through ACLS but have little continting education or adequate practice so they still look like a deer in the headlights until the code team arrives. Unless your on a higher acuity floor you may take ACLS and then not see a code for months or even a year.

 

[Veneficus]

Do any of you ever feel like ACLS Certification is just a title and doesn't mean you actually know what you're doing. I have some co-workers that honestly I don't know how they passed the course. I'll give them a scenario and they seem clueless. Any of you feel the same way?

I think you don't understand what ACLS is.

First, the idea it doesn't certify you, even though disclaimed, is outright false.

It is sort of like saying paramedics are certified but not licensed. From the practical standpoint, everyone knows this word selection minutae is utter BS.

If it doesn't certify you why do you need a card?

The answer:

To prove you have ongoing education in emergency patient care from a recognized curriculum.

Whether joint commision or your local, regional, or state EMS authority demands this ongoing training is a moot point. Somebody you answer to in the chain requires it. So you have to do it.

There are alternatives to the AHA courses. But they are often not as readily avialable or as cheap.

You almost never see nonresident acute care physicians in an ACLS, PALS, or any other merit badge class. When was the last time the head of anesthesia, critical care, surgery, or Emergency medicine was suffering through 2 days of it because they had to?

These classes are not designed for experts. They are designed to meet the minimum standards the person who works with patients but may never see a code in their career must have ongoing training in.

Some places choose to spend millions and develop their own programs. Some places use "curriculum in a box" from somebody other than the AHA. ILS falls into this category. Nothing stops an agency from Using European Resuscitation council guidlines. Nor from South America, Asia/Pacific, etc.

We don't even hope people remember all of it. We hope they remember roughly the order and some skills until an expert can be brought to bear or recognizing futility. Either by transporting to the expert or having the expert come to the patient.

I have tought ad continue to teach these classes. Not because I think I can impart all of my education and experience on somebody in 16 hours and make them an expert.

But because I know that if they follow these guidlines, they have the best chance at a good outcome until an expert takes over or the pt dies.

If people learn something other than simple recognition an early steps after calling for help, that is a bonus, not the intent.

The delivery method was changed to be consistent and standardized.

If you want a class in expert resuscitation, PM me, I will send you my rates. But it will not have an AHA stamp on it, and you won't get a card. You are highly likely to learn something.

 

[VFlutter]

If you want a class in expert resuscitation, PM me, I will send you my rates. But it will not have an AHA stamp on it, and you won't get a card. You are highly likely to learn something.

 

[Veneficus]

Don't know how to imbed.

http://wingsandtails.tumblr.com/post/6497475041/there-is-no-charge-for-awesomeness-or

 

[jwk]

You almost never see nonresident acute care physicians in an ACLS, PALS, or any other merit badge class. When was the last time the head of anesthesia, critical care, surgery, or Emergency medicine was suffering through 2 days of it because they had to?

These classes are not designed for experts. They are designed to meet the minimum standards the person who works with patients but may never see a code in their career must have ongoing training in.

UNLESS your hospital requires it - ours does, so my entire 150 member anesthesia department goes through the charade every two years.

ACLS was kind of a big deal when it first came out. Now it's not, and has been pretty dumbed-down from what it was 30 years ago. It used to require a physician course director, and there was tremendous oversight on the whole thing. Now an RN tied in with the local AHA affiliate can do the whole thing.

 

[Veneficus]

UNLESS your hospital requires it - ours does, so my entire 150 member anesthesia department goes through the charade every two years.

.

That is a rare thing I would say.

In 10 years of teaching ACLS on 3 continents, I have never seen an acute care attending required to take the course. Including in 2 major and very prominant US hospitals.

I have seen the occasional attending sit in a class by choice.

 

[WTEngel]

Possessing an ACLS card does not make you competent, and being an ACLS instructor by no means indicates that you know what you are talking about.

I am faculty at one of the best AHA programs around, and we work hard to keep our quality high. The students who come through our institution actually do learn something. Many of them say that this is the first AHA course that has been worth their time.

The real issue is that everyone and their fricken brother is becoming an ACLS instructor, and they have no business doing so. I seriously had a new grad nurse ask if he could become an ACLS instructor now that he was ACLS certified (this was at the end of the course). His basic thought process was that the course he went through was primarily taught by paramedics, and he was a nurse, so he should be more than qualified. We said no.

I found out about 3 months later that he had become an instructor for one of the fly by night card course companies in town.

At any rate, AHA is responsible for the decreasing weight that their courses carry, but in my opinion, this is not because the curriculum is bad. It is because they have failed to maintain high standards for those that they trust to deliver the material. They have passed this responsibility on to the training centers, and the training centers by and large only care about making a buck.