ACLS Examination

I’ve been told that my school has 2nd years take the ACLS (advanced cardiac life support) cert course in June, right before boards. We only get a couple of weeks to study for boards so this seems like not great timing.


I was investigating the options and I notice that there is an online ACLS cert course offered by AMRI (aclsonline.us). Are these things the equivalent of an on-site course?


Why not take such a course after first year, since the certification lasts 2 years? Is there something about ACLS that requires the full two didactic years of knowledge?


Thanks for any advice,

Hmmmm, the pharmacology of ACLS would require your second-year pharm and pathophysiology learning, probably. And by certifying right before you start clinicals, you’ll have active certification as you start your rotations, which is probably handy. My ACLS course included book work that did not require a lot of time, prior to the two-day class, and then the class was LOTS of repetition and hands-on. Hard to imagine how you could do it on-line.


I can actually see where the ACLS reading/studying could complement what you’ll do in your pharm and cardio review for boards, so I wouldn’t sweat it much.


Mary

  • Mary Renard Said:
Hmmmm, the pharmacology of ACLS would require your second-year pharm and pathophysiology learning, probably. And by certifying right before you start clinicals, you'll have active certification as you start your rotations, which is probably handy. My ACLS course included book work that did not require a lot of time, prior to the two-day class, and then the class was LOTS of repetition and hands-on. Hard to imagine how you could do it on-line.

I can actually see where the ACLS reading/studying could complement what you'll do in your pharm and cardio review for boards, so I wouldn't sweat it much.

Mary



OK thanks for the info. I'm going to see if we can do it during spring break when we would otherwise be doing something useless like relaxing


Terry,


The on-line course is predominantly for re=certs, but you can do your initial cert as well. However, the course is designed for actively practicing physicians and physician extenders. The hump is that while you can do the test & bookwork on-line, the skills validation would be much more of a challenge for someone with limited clinical exposure, esp starting out. The target audience is much along the lines of docs like me - crazy, busy schedules making it hard to recert who also actively engage in clinical skills-work daily such as intubations and such.

One of the reasons that they do it after 2nd year is that you need it for your 2 years of clinical and they only want to pay for it once…


ACLS is not that hard, and a lot of it you can learn while you are in the class…the 1st day is classroom and hands-on…for the most part everything you need to pass the test will be discussed…


Don’t worry about it…study for your other test first


Rachel

Thanks for the tips! So I learned that they have incorporated the ACLS curriculum into one of our clinical classes in MS2 spring term, thus reducing the ACLS course itself to a day and a half.


This leaves us with 3 weeks to study for boards–still rather paltry compared to many schools, I think, but the rationale is that we have a “light” load in the spring to enable some part time board study.


I still worry a bit, though; with me, my responsibilities tend to expand to fill whatever time I have. So I imagine I’ll be just as busy then as I am now



ACLS is cake. Especially after 2 years of med school. This course is given during the first few months of paramedic school. I think you will find it a welcome change from your prev. courses…