The Doctor Will See You Now [Non-Fiction]

Chapter 6: General

I went on a training course for Advanced Life Support today. It means although before I've been trained to do chest compressions (basic life support), give emergency treatment for things like acute heart attack and pneumothorax (intermediate life support), I'm also now equipped to run a cardiac arrest or peri-arrest sequence as team leader. I know how to use more complex airway devices, coordinate team members doing chest compressions -- and switching them out when fatigued -- with those doing ventilations, identify various abnormal heart rhythms, decide management (cardioversion, what voltage and frequency, or giving other medications or pacing), stabilise a patient and then escalate to ITU if they survive the arrest.

And you know what? Multitasking is HARD. It's really hard to think of the underlying cause of cardiac arrests and rectifying them, discussing the situation with seniors who would arrive at a later time, being on top of the whole sequence knowing exactly how many CPR cycles and shocks the patient has had, pausing my thinking to assess the heart rhythm after a 2 minute cycle, and ensuring the rest of the team is in the loop and not exhausted -- and good quality chest compressions are really exhausting. In fact, studies show after a 2 minute cycle, the quality of compressions drop.

But now I'm ready to lead when there's a cardiac arrest call. And I'm quite excited about that.