Home > Health & Fitness > First Aid
Are first aid qualifications recertified frequently enough?
Results so far:
| Yes | 57% | 17 votes | Total: 30 votes | |
| No | 43% | 13 votes |
Yes
by Weaves
Created on: February 07, 2012 Last Updated: February 08, 2012
A quick history of what qualifies me to write an opinion on this subject: I have been involved in pre-hospital emergency medicine in one form or another for approx 27 years. This involvement has progressed from basic military field first-aid through to being a full time Paramedic field supervisor/instructor working on a US fire department. I am also an instructor in Advanced Cardiac Life Support, Pediatric Advanced Life Support, amongst others. I have also worked as an instructor in a major Mid West university teaching various pre-hospital courses.
The question of whether the re-certification requirements for first aid is adequate or not has to be looked at from various differing angles, one of which is, are the financial and time costs involved with re-certification in balance with the perceived value of the particular level of certification.
For example: When an individual has to pay to re-certify for an AHA CPR qualification but has not had an occasion to use the training since the last training, if ever, one inevitably gets into the internal debate of whether one really needs to re-certify , considering that one has never had an occasion to use the training, coupled with the thought that I already know what to do if the occasion should arise sometime in the future.
In this example we can obviously see where a balance needs to be found for the personal cost:benefit ratio. If re-certification requirements are too heavy in this situation we as a society stand to lose many well intentioned, well trained ”links” in the so called ”Chain of Survival”
If the requirements are set loo loosely then we run the risk of having these same ”links” becoming rusty, so to speak. Along with this argument it should be noted that many people believe that bad CPR is better than no CPR, this may be true, depending on just how bad the bad CPR really is.
The same argument however can not be applied to most incidents of First-Aid where bad, however well intentioned, aid can be catastrophic. A quick example of which I have personally witnessed the unfortunate results of, on more than one occasion, is when the well intentioned witness/bystander rushes in to drag the victim from the crashed car.
This is an example of something that should only need to to be taught to any person only once. To ask someone to sit through a lecture on this subject every 2 or 3 years adds weight to the wrong side of the cost:benefit question.
To look at it from another angle, from the point of view of a Nationally Registered Paramedic in the US system. A Paramedic in most, if not all, US states is required to re-certify both at the state and national level every 2 years.(This time period applies to all levels of EMT by the way, although the education requirements vary greatly between the various levels)
As a paid professional in the field it can be quite time demanding to maintain all the ongoing requirements, which are quite substantial for a Paramedic, while working full time on a busy ambulance service. To require a more frequent re-certification period would place too much of an unrealistic burden on the Paramedic.
One must bear in mind that within the US system there are many unpaid, volunteer paramedics and EMTs of various levels that have to maintain a regular job outside of the emergency services but still require the same amount of education, retraining and re certification requirements that a full time paid professional has to meet.
There is no allowance made for the volunteer, and none should be. To ask the volunteer providers to shorten their re-certification period would place an almost impossible demand on them, resulting in many, if not most, not being able to meet the increased requirements. This would mean less well trained ”links” out there and inevitably lead to many more of the well intentioned ” dragged him out of the car wreck” scenarios that we already have far too many of happening.
Learn more about this author, Weaves.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
No
by Rebecca Adele Scarlett
Created on: February 13, 2011
As a lifeguard trained in first aid for the past ten years, and a certified Standard First Aid Instructor and Examiner for the last four, I can confidently say that first aid qualifications are not required to be re-certified nearly frequently enough. In Canada, lifeguards must re-certify their first aid qualification every two years, but non-professionals may retain a qualification for three years before having to re-certify. For my job, I perform a four hour retraining every three months, and since I both teach and perform first aid on a nearly daily basis I am reviewing the material and procedures constantly. Those who obtain a first aid certification to work in daycares or schools, or to be the first aid provider in their offices, often do not practice their first aid skills even once between one re-certification and the next.
The Lifesaving Society recommends that everyone certified in first aid practice their skills on a regular basis, as data collected from first aid classes shows that the average person who is certified in first aid retains less that 30% of what he or she learned at his or her first aid course by the time a month has gone by. If that much is forgotten in a month, the average person will be lucky if he or she remembers when to call 911 by the time he or she is due for a re-certification. When you consider that you may be assuming your child's teacher or daycare worker is capable of handing an emergency simply because he or she has a first aid certificate, this information should shock you.
A standard first aid course may have 20 students to one instructor, and 16 hours to cover around 40 different skills. It is not possible in this time frame to ensure that every student has a thorough grasp of every skill, and the attitude of the organizations that provide certifications seems to be one of "as long as they don't make things worse during practice situations, certify them." Of course, some instructors are more demanding than others - but can you remember the last time someone you know failed a first aid course or re-certification course? Clearly, not all people who are certified in first aid are equally skilled.
Although most first aid skills are merely logic applied to an emergency situation, the very difficulty lies in not panicking so that you can think logically in the middle of one of those situations. The average first aid course doesn't involve nearly enough practice to ensure that everyone walking away with a certification has internalized the skills enough to remember them in the middle of a panic three months later - let alone three years later. Memory like that requires repetition, and more frequent repetition will ensure that people who carry first aid certificates are actually more skilled in providing help that the average person without such a certificate.
If many of the people who are certified in first aid could do no better a job at providing help in an emergency than someone not certified, what would be the point of having the certification in the first place? In order to make sure a first aid certification does actually have some import, all holders of the certification should be required to re-train on a more frequent basis, whether it is needed for their job or not.
Learn more about this author, Rebecca Adele Scarlett.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Write and get published
Share with other writers
Polish your freelancing skills
Quality articles from proven freelancers
Exclusive rights, fast turnaround
Brand engagement, business blogging -- our writers do it all
INFORMATION
Copyright © 2002-2012 Helium, Inc. All rights reserved.
Helium.com: A Service of RR Donnelley