TCLS Again #1
For the fourth year in a row, the Tidewater Center for Life Support (TCLS) Training trained more people in American Heart Association emergency cardiac care courses than any other Community Training Center in Virginia, and it ranked seventh in the Eastern US region. TCLS is a program of the Eastern Virginia Medical School and is operated by the Tidewater EMS Council.
"We're always glad to see the high ranking," says Jim Chandler, Executive Director, "but the credit goes to all of the instructors and training sites that do the training."
A network of nine community training sites, including TCLS itself, offer CPR, first aid, Advanced Cardiac Life Support and Pediatric Advanced Life Support courses. Some 450 instructors are affiliated with TCLS. From July 1, 2000 through June 30, 2001, the center trained or retrained 12,029 individuals. Other courses such as Advanced Trauma Life Support for physicians are also offered by TCLS, but these are not American Heart Association courses and are not counted in the total numbers.
The AHA Eastern US region includes states from Maine to North Carolina and includes 995 training centers.
TCLS numbers were actually down from the previous year of more than 13,000 trained. According to Chandler, a lot of time and effort was directed at implementing new 2001 AHA guidelines. The American Heart Association revises its curricula every five years based on new science and research. Because of new guidelines, each instructor needed a 2001 guidelines "rollout" course, and CPR instructors also needed an automatic defibrillation course orientation. New instructor courses, and a number of the advanced courses, were postponed or cancelled during the implementation of new standards.