Basic Life Support?

[zizou232]

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I took the American Heart Association BLS course and am certified... but is it worth mentioning on my primary? The reason I ask, is one of my friends is a student interviewer for his med school and he told me not to list it because it looked like "filler". I know med students do some basic life support training their first year so I thought it might be worthwhile listing. What do you guys think? If it helps I want to list it but I also dont want to annoy adcoms

 

[loxias]

Definitely filler. Unless you use it and work as an EMT or something, there's no point putting it on your application.

 

[Law2Doc]

I took the American Heart Association BLS course and am certified... but is it worth mentioning on my primary? The reason I ask, is one of my friends is a student interviewer for his med school and he told me not to list it because it looked like "filler". I know med students do some basic life support training their first year so I thought it might be worthwhile listing. What do you guys think? If it helps I want to list it but I also dont want to annoy adcoms

Most med schools don't have med students do BLS until before third year, when you actually will be working on the wards. I've not heard of many places bothering with it as a first year. You can list it or not, it's a non-factor -- med school is going to teach you that stuff anyhow, so it's not like it's going to distinguish you from everybody else who applies, as everyone will end up taking it well before they need it. So it's kind of like telling med school that you already own the biochem text -- it won't make you more desirable, nor should it hurt you much.

 

[Omni]

Writing in your resume that you're BLS certified is the same thing as writing on there that you are certified in knowing what to do during an earth quake, or certified to use a fire extinguisher. Its not going to be any good unless you've used it on EMS or anything else of the sort.

 

[Mattabet]

Writing in your resume that you're BLS certified is the same thing as writing on there that you are certified in knowing what to do during an earth quake, or certified to use a fire extinguisher. Its not going to be any good unless you've used it on EMS or anything else of the sort.

👍 Agree with above. Why did you take BLS though? The reason you took the class may be listable, the class itself is flimsy. And if you list the reason, you can obviously mention the certification.

 

[Blahblahologist]

It probably wouldn't hurt to list it, unless you've got 15 other outstanding things to put on ahead of it. BLS ain't exactly rocket science, but it's one (small) piece of the puzzle.

 

[zizou232]

👍 Agree with above. Why did you take BLS though?

I was a lifeguard one summer but I never had to perform CPR. I think I'll list a hobby or something else instead...

 

[Bacchus]

If you list the lifeguarding job as employment, I would assume upon reading your application you had proper training. Don't list BLS cert.

 

[JohnDoe1]

I wouldn't put it down. I teach BLS CPR to many people each month. I think it will come across as filler, and not really set you apart since many people applying to med school are certified as EMTs anyway, which is a higher level of training.