Managing cardiac arrest after cardiac surgery is uniquely challenging. The CALS course teaches internationally endorsed protocols for treating critically ill post-operative cardiac surgical patients, ensuring every team member knows their role when seconds count. Developed in response to real-world events and now recognised by leading bodies, these protocols set the global standard of care.
Delivered by a multi-disciplinary faculty of intensivists, anaesthetists, and cardiothoracic surgeons at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, this course empowers clinicians to act confidently and safely during cardiac emergencies until definitive intervention is available.
“In 2003 in Blackpool, United Kingdom, there was a cardiac arrest on a patient 4 hour post cardiac surgery. Over the following four hours his chest was re-opened three times and eventually the patient was re-grafted in his ICU bed on bypass. Many of the nursing and junior medical staff reported they felt disorganized and of little help to the situation and would have performed much better if they had a defined and well-practiced role. In response to this we created the Cardiac Surgery Advanced Life Support Course.
We have devised a set of protocols that address the patient suffering a cardiac arrest and all common serious complications in ICU or on the ward. Our aim was to create a common language for all cardiothoracic practitioners. This protocol has grown and has been accepted as the European Association of Cardiothoracic Surgery’s official protocol and has been accepted by the European Resuscitation Council. The Society of Thoracic Surgery also created an expert consensus statement which is published in the Annals of Thoracic surgery (March 2017) which sets these protocols as the standard of care in the USA. In 2022 it was published as a joint ANZSCTS-ANZICS guideline. We hope this course will empower all practitioners to act with confidence to better treat our critically ill patients using well validated protocols, safely managing the patient until expert help arrives”.
The Provider Course includes:
– Principles of managing cardiovascular collapse in the post operative cardiac surgical patient
– EACTS/STS Guidelines
– CALS demonstration
– Human factors in cardiac arrests
– The deteriorating cardiac surgical patient
– Intra-aortic-balloon pumps
– CALS workshops – Airway, Epicardial pacing boxes, Emergency re-sternotomy
– CALS simulations
Cost (inclusive GST):
- Nurse – $395
- Medical – $750
2026 dates – Provider Course
- 1st July
2026 dates – Instructor Course
The Instructor Course qualifies participants to teach on the Provider Courses (attendance at a Provider Course is a pre-requisite)
- 2nd July
Places limited. Register here
Please refer to our cancellation policy here.