Cardiopulmonary resuscitation: effect of training junior house officers on outcome of cardiac arrest.

The cardiopulmonary skills of one intake of junior house officers (JHOs) were assessed and all then underwent a six hour training course. In the following six months we studied the outcomes of 83 cardiopulmonary resuscitation attempts and compared them with results obtained in our hospital two years earlier as part of a multicentre survey when no formal training was undertaken. The JHOs performed poorly in all assessments before training. The initial and long-term survival rates in the present study were no better than in the earlier. There were 12 long-term survivors, 11 required defibrillation. Decreasing the time taken to defibrillation and training other members of the arrest team in addition may lead to improved survival. The training of junior house officers alone is not an effective strategy for improving survival from cardiac arrest.