BACKGROUND OF SCHOOL AND
ONLINE ADVANCED CARDIAC LIFE SUPPORT/
PEDIATRIC ADVANCED LIFE SUPPORT PROGRAMS
In 1983, a diverse group of health care specialists and educators responded to the need for post-graduate medical education. The American Medical Resource Institute was chartered and has for the last 27 years, provided innovative courses in post-graduate health care education. Our faculty represents well known academics and clinicians from coast to coast. Our newer online school provides thousands of U.S. practitioners educational services as well as health care workers from 30 foreign countries.
For decades, ACLS and PALS courses are often conducted by volunteer faculty with little or no ability to provide meaningful clinical education. Many competent practitioners refer to these programs as "merit badge" exercises. Consistency is a typical problem. In addition, many programs were, and are still conducted by para-professionals and assistive personnel lacking scientific education and basic professional training. The purpose of these programs is to assure a generally reliable framework in which health care workers from all disciplines can effectively treat the patient in early cardiac arrest. In the U.S., most institutions accept the American Heart Association's International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation's clinical recommendations regarding ACLS and PALS. This has resulted in a trend toward national standardization of published protocols. (i.e. most recently, the 2010 Guidelines for CPR & ECC, on sale to the public through AHA distribution mechanisms)
By 2000, internet programs had spread to major universities, law schools as well as certification processes such as state licensing examinations. The AMRI Board of Directors reasoned that if one could receive a recognized, accredited college degree via online services, ACLS and PALS would greatly benefit from such a format. In 2003, the first internet site was launched offering ACLS and PALS recertification. Since that time, over 121,000 physicians, nurses and other health care professionals from all 50 states and over 26 foreign countries have successfully participanted in the program. The following are some of the comments which have been received from program evaulations.
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"The Institute has provided me with over 18 years of high quality education. Your faculty and administration are supurb!
"Thanks so much for this great ACLS opportunity! I used to have to drive over 200 miles and waste an entire weekend. Now I review on my own schedule, and do the rest online. My stress levels are lower as well as the cost of recertification."
"Our staff continues to rave about the program AMRI brought to our hospital regarding Legal Issues in Healthcare....."
" Being able to have a course and faculty come to our location solved many problems for our school. We can't wait until next year's programs from AMRI."
"...plastic dummies are for kids. You can't imagine how it feels as an anesthsia professional to have a paramedic "critique" your "skill" at threading an ETT into a blob of plastic. It is actually insulting, but comical as well. The online program restored my faith in system."
"Wow. What an experience. What I ended-up learning shocked me. This program is not for the poorly prepared. After being humbled by failure, I went back and did what I never had to do in my previous ACLS courses.....learn something. I'm a better equipped practitioner now."
"My last PALS course was run by a nurse who said she never took care of kids. It really didn't matter because the participants just walked around a room and played with plastic manikins and took a written test together. I could not understand why my residency program required me to waste the time. The online program lets knowledge be demonstrated and clinical activities documented. This makes sense."
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