Doctor practices where she's preached at

A family physician volunteers to teach CPR to child care workers at her church. Eventually she hopes the whole congregation will learn the lifesaving technique.

By Damon Adams, amednews staff. Dec. 16, 2002.

Community Spirit
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The congregation was filing in for the Sunday service at Clay United Methodist Church when one man started complaining of chest pains.

"I knew by looking at him that he was having a heart attack. He had that ashen gray look," said Debra McClain, MD, a family physician who attends the South Bend, Ind., church.

Paramedics were called, and Dr. McClain monitored the man's blood pressure with equipment the church had on hand. She comforted the man and rode with him to the hospital, where he was treated and survived.

Survival rates double when CPR is performed immediately after cardiac arrest.

The incident made the church think more about emergency preparedness. At the same time, it was looking for ways to save the money it spent sending day-care workers to classes in cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

The church found a solution in Dr. McClain, who offered to teach CPR for free to day-care and nursery workers. After they are taught, Dr. McClain hopes to help train all 900 church members in CPR.

"We want to teach a class a month until we run out of people to teach," she said.

More people learning CPR

The American Heart Assn. encourages such efforts. About 8 million Americans learned CPR from July 2001 to June 2002 -- up from 7 million during the same period the previous year, the association said.

Among the reasons for the increase -- news reports where CPR revived people, a CPR-in-the-schools program to target high-school students and shorter courses.

"You can now learn CPR in under three hours," said Mary Fran Hazinski, RN, senior science editor for the heart association's emergency cardiovascular care programs.

8 million Americans learned CPR from July 2001 to June 2002, up from 7 million the year before.

When effective bystander CPR is performed immediately after cardiac arrest, a victim's chance of survival doubles.

"If everyone is committed to a strong chain of survival in their community, survival from sudden cardiac arrest increases in that community," Hazinski said.

To instruct members of Clay United Methodist Church in CPR, Dr. McClain has teamed up with the church's director of children's ministry, Shar Kobb. The two took a heart association CPR instructor's course this May at an Indiana hospital.

"We helped each other through it. We got very good marks," said Dr. McClain, who practices in South Bend and is president of the Indiana Academy of Family Physicians.

The two taught their first class to church day-care workers in August. In September, nursery volunteers were trained.

In total, 36 people were trained, Dr. McClain said, saving the church almost $4,000 a year in CPR-training costs.

Starting in 2003, training will expand to middle- and high-school students. Kobb said having a physician take part in the instruction adds credibility to the church program.

"When somebody asks who heads this up for you, when you can say a doctor, it calms people and makes them more comfortable with what's going on," Kobb said.

Training church members may save lives beyond the church, Dr. McClain said.

"As people go out in their own walks of life, those skills go with them," she said.