PALS

For non-health care friends:
BLS:  Basic Life Support aka CPR class.  Everyone who comes in contact with patients in the hospital is required to have this.
ACLS: Advance Cardiac Life Support.  We do CPR, meds, airways -- basically everything that could happen in a code blue, although not exactly as shown on evening TV.  Required in ER, ICU, OB, and OR
PALS:  Pediatric Advance Life Support.  Little ones who are way too little to be as sick as they are who may need a lot of support to stay alive until they can be fixed.  Fixed all too often doesn't happen though. Required in ER, ICU, and OR???  I'm not certain where else except for my job locations.
NRP:  Neonatal Resuscitation Program. PALS for babies up to 30 days old.  Required in OB and I'm not certain if it is anywhere else.

Nurses don't have to retest to renew their nursing license, we just mail off a check to DOPL and we're good.  These certifications are where it all comes down to, and timing for me this year stinks.  ACLS in March, PALS this month.

I knew I had PALS coming up, I rescheduled it very end of March because of life chaos.  2 weeks wasn't far enough.  Someone please remind me in two years to take these recert classes a few months before they are due instead of the same month.  After this one I think I'm good on my certifications until next year when I need TNCC.

Guess who forgot to pick up a PALS book to study?  Yup.

Guess who's mind has been everywhere but work unless I'm clocked in?  Yup.

I could keep playing the guess who game but every answer would be me, including who's fault is it?  We don't deal with kids often and while I've used my PALS assessment skills there has only been once that we've had to heavily intervene with a kid on my watch, another that I knew enough to be very watchful and was worried.

You don't use it you lose it.

I have to recertify tomorrow, with my mind still going elsewhere.  I have no idea how I'm going to focus at 7 am on well, anything to be honest.  It's a recert class not a certification so just reviewing and testing to make sure I still remember everything.

I don't stress over tests, but this is as close as I've ever come.  I don't like very ill little ones, they make me very nervous and I always pull out reference material.  Little ones aren't just small adults they are entirely different and it's not just like you have peds and adults.  You have adults, newborns, infant, baby, toddler, pre-school age, school age, adolescents and they are all a little different.  ACLS you just have adults -- the end.

There always seems to be more on the line when the patient is so young, so new, so full of potential, so delicate.  Just a few months ago I was wanting us to have NRP as an option because we had such a tiny baby in ICU and I never even took care of him.  The education is great, the timing for this class sucks but I have no choice, it's a requirement for ICU.

Since I have to be awake, coherent, and learning tomorrow at 7 I should get to bed.