ACLS

Learn the meds.

Learn the rhythms.

Main thing with ACLS -- they're already dead, you can't make them worse.

Wow, just wow.

No, they are not all 'already dead'. Yes you CAN make them worse.

Last time I checked, ACLS had symptomatic bradycardia and tachyarrythmias, along with Acute Coronary syndrome and strokes.

Clearly, these people are not "already dead"

Gees. Serioulsy? Please tell me this is not how you practice.

To the OP, study the ACLS book that your education department provides. It's the only thing you'll need to study, but you can't make it through the class without knowing EKGs.

Does your hospital have a tele unit with monitor tech. Ask if you can use your educational time to sit for 4-8 hours with the tech and practice your rhythms? Or ask the tech to save you some strips, he/she can put the name of the rhythm on the back and you can pick them up and study from them. Real life rhythms aren't always as easy to read as those in the textbooks.

Memorize the algorithms is all you'll need.

I'm definitely not trying to start some kind of argument or put-down here, but this comment along with the one about "they're already dead....you won't make them any worse" is absolutely the worst advice you can get, either about ACLS or nursing practice in general.

I've been an ACLS instructor since 1994, the people that said to review the ACLS provider manual have given the best advice. Everything you need to know in order to successfully complete the course is found in there, plenty of free websites and links can supplement anything you're interested in learning more about.

Passing ACLS is only a small part of it, the real test begins when a patient needs an ACLS intervention, whether they're in cardiac arrest or something else. Learn the rhythms, but also collaborating with your colleagues is a huge part of actually putting ACLS into practice because you'll probably never be given a critical patient and told "you're completely on your own".

For the medications, learn their actions and then you'll know if you have a patient that's bradycardic you need to give atropine or consider transcutaneous pacing; or if they're tachycardic you can look at the complex and decide if they need a ventricular suppressant, beta-blocker or something else. The point is if you learn what each medication generally does, then you will be at a much better advantage to put your knowledge into action when time is short and the margin for error is slim.

I use ACLS all the time and I'd say less than 1/4 of the time the patients are "already dead", we're trying to keep them from becoming that way!

Hope this helps and good luck with your class!!

Memorizing the algorithms has served me well, I have used ACLS skills often and generally one of the go to people during them times.

Thank you all so much for your advice. I will definitely get with tele monitor tech in my hospital and look at strips. We did that in clinical in nursing school and it was helpful. Thanks for all the great websites too. I'm currently working med-surg but I want to switch to cardiology so I thought ACLS is a good start.

Thanks again

Donita