Approximately 300,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur in the United States each year. The American Heart Association (AHA) supports implementation of the “chain of survival” to rescue people who experience cardiac arrest in the community. The “chain of survival” consists of early recognition and emergency activation (phone 9-1-1), CPR, defibrillation, and advanced care. Advanced Cardiac L...

BACKGROUND High stakes medical licensing programs are planning to augment and adapt current examinations to be relevant for a two-decision point model for licensure: entry into supervised practice and entry into unsupervised practice. Therefore, identifying which skills should be assessed at each decision point is critical for informing examination development, and gathering input from residenc...

Epinephrine is recommended in contemporary educational efforts by the American Heart Association (AHA) as central to adult Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS). However, International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) 2019 recommendations update describes large evidentiary gaps for epinephrine use cardiopulmonary resuscitation, highlighting that clinical and experimental evidence do no...

Of the 250 000 patients who undergo major cardiac operations in the United States annually, 0.7% to 2.9% will experience a postoperative cardiac arrest. Although Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) is the standard approach to management of cardiac arrest in the United States, it has significant limitations in these patients. The European Resuscitation Council (ERC) has endorsed a new guideline...

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The Advanced Closed Loop System (ACLS) is currently under development by Airbus Defense and Space and is slated for launch to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2017. The addition of new hardware into an already complex system such as the ISS life support system (LSS) always poses operational risks. It is therefore important to understand the impacts ACLS will have on the existing systems...

Methods Over a 2-year period, 155 fourth to fifth-year medical students in the emergency department were given educational sessions on basic life support (BLS) and adult advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS). These sessions were given by a single instructor in a traditional lecture format, in a small-group discussion, or in a combination of these two methods. Prior to the instructional se...

Although 40 years have passed since the advent of advanced cardiac life support, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest still carries an ultimate failure rate of 95%. This review reinforces the importance of public education, optimization of the local chain of survival, early bystander access and bystander basic life support, and early defibrillation. It emphasizes the role of simplified basic life sup...

An evaluation was conducted on the knowledge gained by pediatric residents on CPR, before and after a PALS (Pediatric Advanced Cardiac Life Support) course. Following an examination of all pediatric residents at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, they were divided into two groups: non-trained (Group 1) and a group scheduled to undergone training (Group 2). A course on ACLS was conducted. Ex...

This section of the 2010 AHA Guidelines for CPR and ECC addresses cardiac arrest in situations that require special treatments or procedures beyond those provided during basic life support (BLS) and advanced cardiovascular life support (ACLS). We have included 15 specific cardiac arrest situations. The first several sections discuss cardiac arrest associated with internal physiological or metab...