Should I take ACLS?

[Dares Dareson]

Third year student here. ACLS is optional at my school and I will have to pay $245. But I kind of want to take it anyway. Thoughts?

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[Cryc_to_the_point]

What is your background in cardiac and resuscitation situations? If it's anything less than extensive, then just take it. You'll be glad to at least start on the same page in a resus while on rotations.

 

[Dares Dareson]

What is your background in cardiac and resuscitation situations? If it's anything less than extensive, then just take it. You'll be glad to at least start on the same page in a resus while on rotations.

My background is, I know that if someone has no pulse you should pump on their chest. I also know that epinephrine does something. That's about it.

 

[Cryc_to_the_point]

Take it. It's not rocket science or anything, but good to have.

 

[Daisonjohn]

Yes, @Cryc_to_the_point is right... Take it, its good to have...

 

[evilbooyaa]

What? You're a MS3. You don't need to be ACLS certified and it's definitely not worth paying out of pocket to be so. Nobody will give 2 ****s that you're ACLS certified on rotations. You will be forced to become ACLS certified prior to your intern year.

As a medical student, you will not be running a code. You do not need to be ACLS certified whatsoever. If you're at a code, you will be one of the monkeys that is thumping on the chest. Make sure you know hwo to do chest compressions. For medical school we did need to be BLS certified, which is reasonable.

If, as an intern, I had a medical student try to tell me what to do during a code (even the interns don't routinely run codes) I would laugh at him.

 

[el_duderino]

Zero need for you to be certified, really. Does your school provide the cert during 4th year? Mine did. Otherwise, just wait til residency.

 

[Dares Dareson]

What? You're a MS3. You don't need to be ACLS certified and it's definitely not worth paying out of pocket to be so. Nobody will give 2 ****s that you're ACLS certified on rotations. You will be forced to become ACLS certified prior to your intern year.

As a medical student, you will not be running a code. You do not need to be ACLS certified whatsoever. If you're at a code, you will be one of the monkeys that is thumping on the chest. Make sure you know hwo to do chest compressions. For medical school we did need to be BLS certified, which is reasonable.

If, as an intern, I had a medical student try to tell me what to do during a code (even the interns don't routinely run codes) I would laugh at him.

Well now I'm going to take it just to spite you.

Also, could you tell me what specialty you're in?

 

[group_theory]

Third year student here. ACLS is optional at my school and I will have to pay $245. But I kind of want to take it anyway. Thoughts?

Will it be good knowledge to have? Yes.

Is it worth the money, as an MS3? No

If you are the first person to come across the patient who is a code blue ... you activate the code blue system (either via button, yelling at someone in the hallway to call a code blue), then start CPR (if there's a backboard, or the bed has a "cpr backboard" built it, use it)

As a MS3, you won't be running the code.

If you take ACLS, you'll know what's going on. If you don't, you will be confused - but your role is to 1. be prepared to do CPR and be prepared to hand off CPR during pulse check and 2. get out of the way (room is too crowded)

Either way, you'll go through BLS/ACLS training before you start intern year (likely during orientation)

Depending on specialty, you might even have to do PALS, ATLS,and NRP

If money isn't an obstacle - take it. If money is, I wouldn't take it (at this level of training at least)

 

[evilbooyaa]

Well now I'm going to take it just to spite you.

Also, could you tell me what specialty you're in?

Rad Onc. I was certified in ACLS as an intern (and PGY-2 I guess since it's a 2-year thing IIRC) which I let expire. If you are interested, you can spend the time and energy to understand the process of what happens in a code without being officially "certified" in ACLS. I learned what to do in an ACLS situation just from reading online. You can learn the H's and T's that are considered as causes without being certified. If you'd like to waste $200+ on something that your residency is going to pay for you (when it's actually necessary for you to have it), then you're certainly welcome to. Just know that nobody will care that the MS3/MS4 is certified in ACLS.

 

[Dares Dareson]

Yeah I think I'm going to just read the book. Thanks, fellas.

 

[Psai]

ACLS is bull**** anyway, no good evidence for anything we do besides chest compressions

 

[TypeADissection]

Going to echo statements above. If you're a MS3-4, there is zero reason to pay out of pocket for ACLS certification. Your residency will do that for you sometime during your orientation. Go spend that cash on good alcohol and subsequent bad decisions. Cheers.

 

[NITRAS]

The nurses will run a code before a MS3. . . . sorry, I wouldn't spent the money.

 

[W19]

Don't you need ACLS for VSAS rotations? I had to take it to apply for away rotations...

 

[Reveler]

Agree, I was at rotation sites as MS3/4 that required ACLS certification. Our class completed it prior to starting 3rd year.

 

[lemurcatta]

ACLS is bull**** anyway, no good evidence for anything we do besides chest compressions

Which is why ACLS strongly emphasizes high-quality compressions and early defibrillation, and has de-emphasized nearly everything else for cardiac arrest. Anyways, I don't see much of a point as a medical student. It is a class that merely teaches a few algorithms with some limited hands-on practice, is expensive, and needs to be renewed every two years. The algorithms btw, are free online. I'd wait to be certified until you get the class for free.

 

[Dares Dareson]

So if medical students do compressions, and compressions are the only thing that works, the only person in the room not ACLS certified is doing the only important part of ACLS...ironic

 

[lemurcatta]

So if medical students do compressions, and compressions are the only thing that works, the only person in the room not ACLS certified is doing the only important part of ACLS...ironic

I think Psai was being facetious (and commenting on lack of efficacy of things like epi and antiarrthymics). Defib is crucial in certain rhythms, and search for underlying cause can sometimes yield opportunities to attempt to correct the underlying insult that caused the arrest. But all of this is useless without good compressions to maintain CPP during everything else mentioned.

 

[evilbooyaa]

So if medical students do compressions, and compressions are the only thing that works, the only person in the room not ACLS certified is doing the only important part of ACLS...ironic

You don't need to be ACLS certified to do chest compressions, correct. You could teach a monkey to do high quality chest compressions. In a hospital setting, the person running the code needs to be ACLS certified to figure out HOW the team can reverse whatever is causing the current code so that the poor med student can STOP doing compressions. And ya know, have the patient live. Won't get into a discussion of the quality of life most post-code people have.

 

[siliso]

You’ll need it for your internship. Our local med school took it out of the curriculum for MS3s a few years ago which I think is a little unfortunate. If you don’t need the actual card now then I don’t guess you need to actually go to the class, but understanding the material/algorithms is probably worthwhile for any inpatient rotation where your patients might code or have other unstable rhythms. It’s not super hard to self teach, really most of the course is self taught before you get there anyway.

 

[073116]

It's very interesting and kinda gets you into the routine and mood if you know how to run code. I'm MS3 only, but our school requires acls certification and pays for it. I took it and did 3 megacodes - was very interesting. Besides obvious (meds/aed) it teaches you how to assign roles quickly, how to control little chaos and I liked it very much - preps you to be a leader in ER for example when time comes. You can at least watch online megacode videos and read up about procedure and drugs. What I also liked is that our acls instructor was a retired cardiologist with a vast knowledge and we learned a ton about 12 lead ecg from him. He probably hammered down into us half the amount of what cardiology rotation will teach you. Was very interesting and even made me think about cardiology specialty.

 

[deleted645092]

My school makes it a mandatory part of our 2nd year curriculum and covers the costs, which was cool. However like they said above, I won’t be expecting to actually be able to run anything. It will be good to actually know what is going on around me though, and answer a few pimp questions I suppose. During undergrad when they ran codes in the ED I had no clue what was going on around me, so next time I’m in the room I won’t be so clueless.