Thursday, April 24, 2008

I love AHA movies

Having completed my ACLS recert today, I have been subjected to an inhuman number of cheesy American Heart Association videos.

I love watching really cheesy instructional videos, and this course provided no shortage of laugh out loud moments. Two really brought the house down for me:

1. Man goes down in front of a hotel while wheeling his luggage in. Four people are standing at the top of the stairs just outside the hotel. One runs down and begins BLS care by asking if he's okay and then shouting up to the other three people who are just standing there to call 911 blah blah blah. (pause for a second. Okay, I get it: this video is to demonstrate 1-rescuer BLS. But if I'm doing CPR on a guy and there are THREE people just standing there (albeit standing there looking very concerned), I'm going to start throwing things at them to get them to come help me. Seriously. Even when the guy brought the AED, he just sat there while the other guy stopped CPR to set it up.) That isn't the funny part, though. So this guy goes through his first cycle of 30 chest compressions and now it is time to do 2 breaths. So he reaches in his pants pocket and pulls out a full-sized face mask. In his other pocket he had a chest tube tray with three different sizes of tubes... oh, and a ventilator. And a dialysis machine. Just in case. And you thought Parker Lewis couldn't lose.

2. Doctor and Nurse are standing at the bedside. The Doctor goes over the risks and benefits of TPN with the patient and then turns to the nurse. "I have discussed the risks and benefits of thrombolytic therapy with the patient and she has agreed to the treatment." What I would have said as the nurse: "Um... yeah. I was there. Remember? 10 seconds ago? You on one side of the bed, me on the other? Got it."

3. ER doc to nurse: "Give 4000 units unfractionated heparin and start a drip at x rate, and give clopidogrel if ordered by the cardiologist." So now I need an order from the doc to follow an order from the doc?

1 comment:

Rogue Medic said...

These are INTENTIONALLY funny. AHA is really in the avant guard of resuscitation comedy. The stroke video, where the patient was watching the weather on the news in a store window, so they know exactly the time symptoms began, rather than just within 10 or 20 minutes of when symptoms began. Of course, this leads to complete resolution of symptoms. And it is better than watching Ellery Queen reruns.

Their refusal to take money from Nabisco for their heart healthy label (a form of branding that AHA used to make a big deal out of) - Nabisco was owned by Phillip Morris (now called Altria, possibly to confuse AHA). A healthy product made by a subsidiary of a tobacco company must be shunned. Well, this was just an example of early AHA humor.