Basic ECG Course - Canada

Description

If your job requires you to read Lead II of an EKG or ECG strip, you will benefit from the ECG course we offer at the Western Institute of Emergency Education. This course is a great choice for health care professionals, whether they want to become experts in this area or simply wish to improve their current skills.

Who Should Take the ECG Course?

The ECG course is ideal for ECG techs, first responders, physicians, cardiac nurses, and physician assistants as well as anyone studying to join one of these professions in Canada. Anyone working in a medical field who needs to deal with cardiovascular emergencies, such as a cardiopulmonary arrest, can benefit from the ECG course.

As this is not a Heart and Stroke Foundation course, you will receive no official certification at the end. However, you will gain valuable skills and knowledge. In fact, many organizations prefer that their health care staff take this course before the advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) or pediatric advanced life support (PALS) courses. Plus, if you are a practitioner registering with the Alberta College of Paramedics, you can use this course to receive credits.

Basic ECG Module

The ECG module takes around 8 hours to complete. An instructor will lead you through various scenarios, all of which will give you the chance to hone your skills and improve your understanding.

You will have hands-on practice interpreting basic ECGs, recognizing myocardial infarctions, and correctly placing a 12 Lead ECG. The instructor will provide you with feedback and answer all your questions.

Through this training, you will learn how to tell when an ECG is normal and when a sudden cardiac arrest has happened by looking at heart rate, sinus rhythm, and other indicators.

The course also covers theory about cardiac anatomy and electrophysiology. Instruction is aided by animations, images, and clinical cases. All of this increases your understanding of how the heart works, helping you to improve your diagnoses and management of problems.

Pharmacology Module

 You can take this module at the same time as the ECG module or separately.

In this part of the course, you will learn about the drugs used during a cardiac event. You will learn which medications are the most appropriate for various situations and how to use the drugs, including when intravenous and interosseous access is unavailable.

You will also learn the basics of ACLS drugs, like their dosage, contradictions, and usage in post-resuscitation situations. None of this is covered in ACLS — it is expected that you already possess this knowledge. This is just one reason why the ECG course is an excellent precursor to ACLS.