You cannot make everyone happy

The other day we published a blog post about BLS, if you need to take Basic Life Support (BLS) before you take Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS). We were preparing to make a follow-up post about Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) when some instructors from Chicago CPR Now (www.chicagocprnow.com) told us the story of their first bad review on Yelp!  The adage you cannot make everyone happy needs to be repeated over and over when running a business. There is going to come a time when you are not able to make someone happy. In this story, a potential student called inquiring about a PALS class. The phone call started off casually asking about the schedule, when it was offered next, time, how long the class would be, and the like. Then it took a turn we did not expect. The caller tried to proposition us (for lack of a better word), trying to solicit a PALS card from us without having to take the class. Their rationale was, “But I am a pediatrician, why should I have to take this class?”

Being a pediatrician is exactly why you need to take a PALS class! So you know exactly what to do in an emergency. These classes are a time to practice and rehearse your skills. Sure, you went to school and learned a lot, good for you – but when is the last time you ran a code? While cardiac arrest or some other kind of emergency can happen anywhere, at any time, the majority of healthcare providers have not participated in a cardiac arrest/code blue situation, better yet run a cardiac arrest.

We may get some naysayers, but we dare you ask your PCP when the last time they had a code blue at their cozy doctor’s office, when is the last time they took charge of a code blue, assigning roles to team members, and following the appropriate algorithms.  Or to expand on the scenario we talked about above – ask your child’s pediatrician!

Giving credit where credit is due…

Nearly all of the instructors at Absolute CPR work in healthcare (or plan to), which means we are often surrounded by healthcare providers of all kinds of disciplines. Doctors, physician assistants, nurses, advanced practice nurses, respiratory therapists, paramedics, patient care techs, occupational therapists, physical therapists, emergency medical technicians, radiology technicians, and so on. We are all healthcare professionals providing specific services. We all need BLS, some of us need ACLS and/or PALS. But what we all have in common is success. Either academic degrees, licenses, certifications issued to us after successfully passing programs that are years or months long, we all achived our goals to become the professionals we are. We got into the business of helping people. We lerned that in this industry there a lot of rules, one of them being the requirements for work. If you are new to the industry congratulations! This industry requires CPR cards if you are not aware. These cards are only good for two years. So our industry standard is you need to take a CPR class every two years.  Absolute CPR did not make these rules, we have to follow them also.

The right of passage of jumping through hoops

To paraphrase, the healthcare industry requires CPR cards, these cards are only good for two years, so every two years you need to take a new CPR class. This is our industry. These rules have been around longer than this healthcare provider wants to admit outloud to following. Of all the things we couuld discuss that need to change in the healthcare industry, taking a CPR class every two years will never find its way onto that agenda. There are far greater things to discuss. Nobody sees that changing any time soon. Therefore it is our hoop we need to jump through every two years. Taking these required classes is our right of passage to be part of this wonderful, enormous group of life savers!