Monday, January 11, 2010
Friday, January 1, 2010
IS IT THE END OR THE BEGINING OF ACLS?
Its been nearly a week since we created this blog and there is not a single new post and no new member added! I could not think of a topic to write. And today as I completed the ACLS training, one of the most important trainings for all the medical personnel and more so for an anesthesiologist, thoughts rushed into my mind and thought it was worth sharing. As all the teachers rightly said, today was not the end of ACLS, rather it was the beginning! The beginning of rightly approaching a victim of cardiac arrest and save his/ her life. Yes, there seems to be many problems, many confusions even after this training. I hope with practice all of us will be able to do it properly. But I still feel it is the team work and the effort of the whole resuscitation team that counts since a single person cannot resuscitate the victim without wastage of time. And time, for a patient with cardiac arrest, is critical. Every second lost is loss in hope for successful resuscitation.
All of us have faced the same problem day in and day out during our anesthesiology residency. We are called from the ER or ward for resuscitation but when we reach there the patient is lying unattended, there is no one doing the basic life support, the equipments and drugs for advanced cardiac life support are not ready, and there is no help readily available. We have to run to get the equipments ready, which most of the times are not in place or not functioning; monitors are not available in most of our wards, let alone defibrillators. In such situation I always question the usefulness of resuscitation. In such situation what are the chances of bringing the patient back? And even the patient is revived, what are the chances of his neurological improvement when he has suffered such prolonged duration of hypoxia within the hospital itself, let alone the duration before he was brought to hospital? So I always felt the need for proper coordination among the doctors of different departments and among the doctor and nurses. Everybody should know what the other is doing, should know what the next step is, what should one's role be, and that resuscitation is not a one man business. It is the effort from each and everyone that will save the life of a human being. So I hope one day we will be able to perform the CPR in its real sense and not as "Cheating Patient's Relatives"!
All of us have faced the same problem day in and day out during our anesthesiology residency. We are called from the ER or ward for resuscitation but when we reach there the patient is lying unattended, there is no one doing the basic life support, the equipments and drugs for advanced cardiac life support are not ready, and there is no help readily available. We have to run to get the equipments ready, which most of the times are not in place or not functioning; monitors are not available in most of our wards, let alone defibrillators. In such situation I always question the usefulness of resuscitation. In such situation what are the chances of bringing the patient back? And even the patient is revived, what are the chances of his neurological improvement when he has suffered such prolonged duration of hypoxia within the hospital itself, let alone the duration before he was brought to hospital? So I always felt the need for proper coordination among the doctors of different departments and among the doctor and nurses. Everybody should know what the other is doing, should know what the next step is, what should one's role be, and that resuscitation is not a one man business. It is the effort from each and everyone that will save the life of a human being. So I hope one day we will be able to perform the CPR in its real sense and not as "Cheating Patient's Relatives"!
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