Health Education Ideas

Sometimes, Ideas are needed for a teaching opportunity. Or you just want to be well informed. A great source for information is the Department of Health and Human Services "Healthy People 2020" website. This report is put out every 10 years. This report lays out HHS's health initiatives for the decade. The thrust is healthy living and lifestyle choices. Checkout my article on it and also, follow the link above to the report itself. Read more....

Infant and Child First Aid/Cleveland

Face it, as medical professionals, we need to realize our role as educators. From questions from family and friends to formal classroom training, people expect us to know what we are talking about. When asked the how, what where and when of educational opportunities, it is nice to have a factual answer, or be able to know where to find the answer.



As far as infant and child first aid and CPR, there are many options available. Here is the story of the Greater Cleveland area. Read it and get ideas for where you live. Read article...

Now on to the Secondary Survey

Now that the primary survey is out of the way, you can next go to the secondary survey. This article is geared more toward the first aider. Follow this link to learn more............

Always Do a Good Primary Survey

Do you want to know what to do in an emergency? What do I start with?
Is the scene safe?
What are the ABCs? Am I trained to be up to the challenge? If you need answers to these questions, follow this link to a useful article that I wrote...........

Where Can I Learn Infant CPR?

Infant CPR is a must for the medical professional. I also believe that for the lay person, this is, not only a comfort to know, but also, something everyone should learn. This link will take you to a great article on where to begin your journey of learning. Find out more...

PALS and ACLS Preperation

A number of my students come to their ACLS or PALS provider and refresher classes unprepared. The funny thing is, the don't have to. With the student manuals in hand, they can walk through the door aces.

An easy way to prepare for your PALS class is to pull out the supplemental manual. In this manual, you will find most of the information you need to do well. My first tip is to page through the manual and look at the algorithms. Read through each algorithm. Pay particular attention to what is in the green boxes. This is important tidbits. Notice that they usually have something to do with the ABCs. Remember, keep it simple and practice high quality CPR.

Speaking of CPR, please go through the CPR/AED Competency Testing at the front of the manual. The biggest confusion I see with students us when to do 30:2 or 15:2. Even if you just recently took BLS, a little brush up will not hurt.

Next, look again at the algorithms. What you see in the blue boxes is your action steps. You will need to know these steps after you have assessed, categorized and decided what to do.

Throughout the manual, you will find Learning Station Competency Checklists. These are the same checklists your instructor will use to test you out. A little study of these will let you know what your instructor will be looking for.

You will find the same thing applies to the ACLS suplimental manual. Pay Close attention to the BLS Primary Survey and the ACLS Secondary Survey. These two surveys are the heart of ACLS. Also pay close attention to the Foundation Facts throughout the manual.

As with PALS, ACLS is based on high quality CPR. Brush up on your CPR/AED skills.

Look at your ACLS Algorithms. Green boxes are the meat and blue boxes are your actions. remember to assess and reassess.

You will also find,like you did in the PALS manual, Learning Station Competency Checklists. You will also find the actual checkoff sheets you instructor will use for your Megacode.

With a little preperation, you can come into your PALS and ACLS class a well prepared provider. Who knows, it might even help to aliviate your test anxiety. angziety

ACLS and High Quality CPR

As an ACLS Instructor, one of the hardest things I notice students have trouble with is that ACLS and PALS is all about high quality CPR. My Training Center, The Cleveland Clinic, pushes this. Students usually come in, wrapped up in the algorithms, enamored by the pharmacology. Who is to blame them? We as health care providers are trained to push, push, push. If we as instructors are doing our job, the student, by the end of the course, has totally bought into the concept of high quality CPR.

I have provided two great links here. One is to the publication Circulation. The December 13, 2005 issue discusses the science behind the 2005 AHA guidelines. The other link is to a podcast lecture, hosted by Zoll, on the EMSresponder.com website, by Keith Wesley, MD. In this podcast. Dr. Wesley discusses changes to the 2005 AHA guidelines and other issues concerning CPR. The great thing about this link, after listening to the podcast, you can receive .5 CE hours.