Things To Know About ACLS / PALS
What Is ACLS:
ACLS stands for Advanced Cardiac (or Cardiovascular) Life Support. Technically speaking, it refers to ‘a set of clinical interventions for treating life threatening medical emergencies / cardiac arrests caused because of a number of factors’. Advanced cardiac life support is usually performed by trained medical experts. It is not for each and every person to have their hands on. It requires not just knowledge of advanced ability to handle fine medical devices, it also requires plenty of skill and experience to perform in the right way. It is a must for medical experts like the respiratory therapists, clinical pharmacists, nurses, nurse practitioners, paramedics etc to know every aspect of ACLS like the back of their hands. These experts are required to be capable of handling sensitive issues like managing the patient’s airway, read and interpret electrocardiograms, initiate IV access etc. These are extremely technical and only the people with some professional medical background can be rightfully eligible to handle this task. The experts are therefore required to have an ACLS certification in order to be allowed to handle medical issues as such. This is to say that those medical professionals who do not hold a proper certification of ACLS will not be allowed to manage such emergency situations.
ACLS Certification shows that the person employed to handle the emergency situation is capable of doing so in the best possible way. The ACLS certified professionals can properly identify the cause of the emergency situation and can, in the shortest possible time chalk out the right life support solution till the time the patient receives medical attention in the hospital. What makes the task of the ACLS professionals more important is the fact that, the immediate treatment that is provided to the patient in the hospital is based on their reading of the cause because of which it occurred in the first place. Take for example, a person has been discovered in critical condition of cardiac arrest and he / she is in no position to explain why it happened. It is now upon the ACLS professionals to find out the cause which can be anything from an unforeseen heart attack for natural reasons or it could be drug overdose or similar causes. Treatment for arrest due to drug overdose is way different than treatment of cardiac arrest due to natural causes. Thus, if identification of the cause is wrong then the patient can suffer more because of wrong treatment. This is one among the many reasons why any ACLS professional has to be certified and thoroughly trained.
Certification of ACLS and others like PALS (pediatric advanced life support) can be availed through both online and offline courses. While ACLS requires stringent rules to be met, Online PALS is common with people at large, because it is open for all to attain a certification in the same whether they have any medical background or not. (medical background though, is always preferred). The point to note is that, whether ACLS or PALS, both require skill and expertise and neither can be performed without certification.
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