Are you ready for emergencies?
Is Basic Life Support training necessary for medical students? Learn why BLS skills are essential for emergencies, clinical practice, and patient safety.
Are you ready for emergencies?
Basic life support may seem simple. As medical professionals, we are trained to diagnose, treat, and review patients, but emergencies can happen anytime. It could be in the form of cardiac arrest, anaphylactic shock, choking, stroke, etc. Immediate care must be provided for such cases, and even a second delayed is a life lost. As medical professionals, we may be able to save a few if we are well versed in the basics of basic life support.
What is basic life support?
Life is unpredictable. People who are alive right at this moment may not be alive to see the next second. Basic life support is an essential skill in managing emergency conditions. It includes
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation
Valsalva maneuver for choking
Airway management
Use of AED and defibrillators
Why is BLS training essential for medical students?
Provides real life exposure
Though the training is done in dummies, the training and level of skill obtained is applicable for emergency situations. The basic essence of how to save a life is obtained. It provides confidence and empowerment to deal with real life situations.
Saves lives
Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is a public health burden accounting for nearly 10% of global mortality and 50% of cardiovascular deaths
Bystander CPR saves lives. When healthcare workers are educated in the techniques and procedures, they are able to save countless lives. Though doing proper CPR requires extensive training, knowing the basics can help protect thousands of people by doing Bystander CPR.
Most of the cardiac arrests were witnessed (96%), with medical personnel (73%) and relatives (23%) being the most common witnesses
Improves teamwork and communication skills
Providing basic life support can be a teamwork, with assistance required in every stage. Doing a single person CPR is possible, but it results in easier fatigue and decreased quality of CPR. Providing training helps to build teamwork and improves communication skills.
Efforts taken
Various efforts are being taken to reduce deaths by lack of CPR. Providing CPR training to healthcare workers, especially medical students, can prove to be fruitful in preventing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases.
Do you know BLS? Are you willing to save lives?
