Pediatric Advanced Life Support, also commonly known as PALS, is a course that healthcare professionals can take that is “geared towards healthcare providers who respond to emergencies in infants and children and for personnel in emergency response, emergency medicine, intensive care, and critical care units.” Anyone who completes this course will be awarded a certificate that lasts for two years. Undertaking the PALS training program is a significant endeavor, however, so if you need to take this course here are a few ways to make sure you know you are well on your way to success.
Firstly, you should make sure you meet the minimum requirements to both take the course itself and work in a field where the PALS certification is relevant. Taking a PALS course is not as simple as registering for enrollment, as you must first go through a precourse assessment and pass with a score of seventy percent or greater prior to taking the classes.
Worth mentioning as well is the possibility that the results of a background check may interfere with your career as a health professional, as you will not be able to apply for enrollment in the course if you do not meet a set of basic requirements. Specifically, you must already be a health professional to enroll in a PALS course. If you have reason to believe that this may be an issue, it may be worthwhile to do your due diligence and conduct a background check on yourself with a been verified review or similar online service.
Depending on where you live and how you want to take the course, finding and attending that course’s classes may pose a challenge by itself. Going out of your way to attend a class in person is ideal for healthcare professionals, but acceptable alternatives exist if physical attendance is simply not possible. You can take certification and recertification courses for PALS online, and such courses may even have the benefit of increased scheduling flexibility as well. Another major difference between PALS courses offered by different course providers is the score required to pass them. The website “surefirecpr.com” lists the minimum passing grade as being “84%,” which contrasts with the “80%” passing grade that is listed as being required by emedcert.com at the time of this writing. A raised minimum passing score is almost certainly going to be a dealbreaker for many, especially taking into account that a PALS course already tends to require an already unusually high minimum passing score of eighty percent or more, so it will be worth reading through the particular details of the specific class that you would like to take as they are presented to you.
Taking an exam is a skill unto itself, so you should do everything you can to make sure you know all of the course material. Standard test-taking tips will likely apply to this course, but more important is your ability to be a diligent student. Taking notes, asking questions, and interacting with other students are all great ways to succeed in any kind of class. In the case of physical classes, getting along with your teacher should also help greatly as well. Depending on the class size, you may have to interact with your teacher closely regardless of how well you get along with them. Given that you are required to take a recertification course after two years as well to remain certified, it would be worthwhile to hone your abilities as a student to prepare yourself for your career-long education.
The most straightforward path to success in a PALS certification course is to do your best both as a student and as a healthcare professional. Medical advancements are always being made no matter where or how you take the course, so you must be always willing to learn something new.
