CPR Certification - You Don't Really Need It, Do You?

In starting a company whose mission is to offer free CPR training to the world, I frequently find myself in the position to give my company's elevator pitch to a new acquaintance. And in doing this for the past ten years, I have found that people have a variety of different perceptions about CPR certification and its role. I have also found that many of these perceptions are wrong.

To illustrate, let's look at a recent interaction I had with someone at a tech conference in San Francisco. When I explained to this person what I do for a living, she made a comment about how she had been CPR certified years ago. "I really should get re-certified though," my new friend says. "I heard that CPR has changed and I wouldn't know what to do if I needed to perform CPR on someone now. You're not supposed to give breaths any more, right?"

Conversations like this one are not uncommon in my experience, but they give us important insight into what has gone wrong with the CPR certification industry. On a related note, most experts will agree that there is a problem with CPR awareness and willingness for bystanders to respond in an emergency. According to the American Heart Association, the percentage of people who feel helpless to act in a cardiac emergency may be as high as 70 percent.

So, what is wrong with my friend's response? Several things. The first problem is the perception that CPR re-certification is necessary in order to perform CPR. Put quite simply, it is not. I don't mean to diminish the importance of CPR certification, but it is not required to perform CPR on someone. You simply need to know what to do. In fact, if you call 911, the dispatcher will do his best to explain how you can start CPR on the victim even if you've never been trained in CPR before.

If CPR certification is not required, then you may wonder, what role does it play? People in certain jobs (such as doctors, nurses, teachers, etc.) are required to be CPR certified in order to respond to emergencies at work. These people need to formally prove that they have been trained in CPR and are competent to perform it as part of their job duties if required -- thus the need for certification. In the past, however, CPR certification has been the only way for people to learn CPR, even if it was not for a job requirement for them. In recent years, free online training in CPR has made the need for certification much less important for lay rescuers who don't need to prove proficiency to an employer or state department and simply want to know how to respond in an emergency.

The next thing that concerns me about this person's response is the statement that CPR has changed in recent years and she wouldn't know what to do. You might stop me here and insist that CPR has changed recently. After all, the 2010 guidelines changed some number sequences and the order of the ABC's, among other things. While this may be true, it is important to remember that these are simply guidelines based on the latest science for the best chance of survival. When it comes down to it, CPR is a technique that is meant to buy time for the victim until advanced life support arrives. Not knowing the latest number sequences is no reason to feel unfit to perform CPR. Doing something is better than doing nothing. An unintended result of certifying people in CPR, communicating the importance of the specific number sequences, and testing people on these numbers has been to over complicate CPR to the point where people feel they are not capable of doing CPR on someone in need.

This fear of performing CPR brings me to the last point, which is the notion that rescue breaths are no longer part of CPR. In recognizing that CPR was seen as being too complicated, leading organizations have been promoting hands-only CPR in recent years. While this serves to simplify the skill of CPR and is meant to encourage more people to get involved and try something, it has instead led to the misconception that the CPR training many people received is now obsolete or ineffective. In short, it has only resulted in more confusion about how to respond in an emergency.

So, is there a simple solution to clear up the misconceptions concerning CPR certification? Share this article and the free CPR training it advocates and you can help to bring about that solution.

For free awareness-level CPR training or professional CPR certification, visit ProCPR.org and spread the mission of free CPR education. Help us bring free CPR training to your high school with the Student CPR program.

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