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Public Health Officials Give CPR an Update

by Alex Russel

This isn't your mother's CPR, or so say public heath officials who want the most crucial resuscitation practice to get a much-needed update.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is critical when people collapse with cardiac arrest, but most people, even those with training, get it wrong. A major new effort is under way to improve how doctors, paramedics, and average folks like you and I do the job. These new CPR guidelines are due this fall, while high-tech machines that promise to help are already showing up in emergency rooms, ambulances, and the workplace.

Public Health Career Looks At CPR

It remains to be seen if these new techniques will save more lives than the old ways, CPR has never been a huge success. Indeed, according to the Associated Press, emergency-care and public health careerists agree that CPR today doesn't save as many lives as it could.

"We've got our work cut out for us to make sure CPR is done better," says Mary Fran Hazinski of the American Heart Association, which is taking an active role in updating CPR techniques.

Public Health CPR Crisis?

More than 300,000 Americans die each year of cardiac arrest.

Portable defibrillators have made good headway in recent years increasing cardiac arrest survival. These machines deliver a shock of electricity that stuns the heart, ending the abnormal rhythm and giving it a chance to resume a normal beat.

Defibrillators Alone Not Enough

But defibrillators aren't enough. Cardiac-arrest victims need CPR, too. Often, it buys time until a defibrillator arrives and sometimes it's needed immediately after zapping, as the heart struggles to find the right circulation.

"It has to be good CPR," says Dr. Lance Becker of the University of Chicago, co-author of a surprising study earlier this year that found even the best-trained rescuers - doctors, nurses paramedics, and other public health professionals - too frequently give inadequate CPR. "We don't want to delay defibrillation for crummy CPR."

The public health studies found long pauses in CPR where rescuers weren't pounding hard or fast enough on victims' chests.

Connection to Public Health Jobs

Rethinking CPR is just a small, yet emblematic, example of where public health jobs can take you. Public health careers delve into all aspects of improving our everyday lives.

About the Author

Alex Russel is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Since graduating from Syracuse University he has worked at many different media companies in fields as diverse as film, TV, advertising, and journalism. He holds a dual bachelor's degree in English and History.

Sources

Associated Press


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