Paediatric Emergency Care & Paediatric Advanced Life Support (PEC + PALS)

The CRANAplus Pae­di­atric Emer­gency Care and Pae­di­atric Advanced Life Sup­port (PEC + PALS) course is an inter­ac­tive, prac­ti­cal course that cov­ers aspects of the emer­gency man­age­ment of chil­dren. As with all CRANAplus cours­es, it is con­tex­tu­alised to Aus­tralian remote and iso­lat­ed settings. 

Our PEC + PALS course con­tent is con­sis­tent with both the Aus­tralian and New Zealand Com­mit­tee on Resus­ci­ta­tion (ANZ­COR) Guide­lines and the Inter­na­tion­al Liai­son Com­mit­tee on Resus­ci­ta­tion (ILCOR) Guide­lines, and facil­i­tates a stan­dard approach to best prac­tice in Aus­tralia. The PEC+PALS course aims to pro­vide the health work­force with a struc­tured approach to:

• Emer­gency pae­di­atric care that is cru­cial in the first few hours of a life-threat­en­ing ill­ness or injury
• The con­tin­u­um of care from pae­di­atric basic life sup­port through to the use and avail­abil­i­ty of more advanced skills and resources allow­ing pro­vi­sion of pae­di­atric advanced life support. 

CRANAplus encour­ages clin­i­cians to apply the knowl­edge and skills acquired in accor­dance with pro­fes­sion­al and indi­vid­ual scope of prac­tice, and as defined by their employ­ing health ser­vice’s pol­i­cy, pro­ce­dures and guidelines.

The course is rec­om­mend­ed for nurs­es, para­medics and doc­tors look­ing to increase con­fi­dence, knowl­edge and clin­i­cal skills in pae­di­atric emer­gen­cies in low-resource settings.

If you have any queries about the course or its rel­e­vance to your prac­tice, sub­mit an enquiry here.

The PEC course uses a blend­ed learn­ing approach:

• Online pre-course mod­ules to be com­plet­ed one week pri­or to the course
• Atten­dance of a two-day face to face work­shop that is designed to build on the con­tent cov­ered in the pre-course modules
• Prac­tice of skills in a sup­port­ive learn­ing envi­ron­ment to apply under­stand­ing through guid­ed dis­cus­sions, prac­ti­cal, hands-on skill sta­tions and con­­text-based sce­nar­ios led by expe­ri­enced facilitators.

• Demon­strate a com­pre­hen­sive and sys­tem­at­ic approach to the assess­ment and man­age­ment of the ill and/​or injured infant and child using a struc­tured approach.
• Demon­strate an under­stand­ing of clin­i­cal dete­ri­o­ra­tion and apply this knowl­edge to the ear­ly iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and man­age­ment of the seri­ous­ly ill and/​or injured infant and child
• Demon­strate ear­ly man­age­ment and prac­ti­cal skills required to man­age an ill and/​or injured child who has pre­sent­ed with a life-threat­en­ing emergency
• Demon­strate effec­tive and accu­rate clin­i­cal handover
• Demon­strate key ele­ments of Pae­di­atric Advanced Life sup­port including:
  • Human fac­tors and resource management
  • Caus­es of car­diac arrest
  • Basic and advanced air­way man­age­ment and ventilation
  • Car­diac arrest and defib­ril­la­tion management
  • Post resus­ci­ta­tion care.

• PEC online mod­ules (10) + PALS online mod­ules (8 + 1 quiz; requir­ing a 90% pass). It is expect­ed that all online mod­ules will be com­plet­ed at least one week pri­or to the workshop.
• A two day face-to-face work­shop con­sist­ing of guid­ed dis­cus­sions, skill sta­tions and prac­ti­cal scenarios.
• Two prac­ti­cal sce­nario-based assessments.

• A CRANAplus Pae­di­atric Emer­gency Care cer­tifi­cate (valid for 2 years)
• A CRANAplus Pae­di­atric Advanced Life Sup­port cer­tifi­cate (valid for 2 years).

Giv­en the remote loca­tion of many of our cours­es, we are some­times restrict­ed to Veg­e­tar­i­an and Gluten Free dietary options. While we always sup­ply fresh food and fruit, par­tic­u­lar foods may not be eas­i­ly accessed in remote areas. Should you have quite spe­cif­ic restric­tions we encour­age you to bring some basics and then pick and choose from the fresh food offered on the day. You should also inform us of any aller­gies you may have so we can advise the cater­er and be aware of the situation.

CRANAplus Mem­bers receive a dis­count on face-to-face course reg­is­tra­tion and are eli­gi­ble to apply for var­i­ous CRANAplus pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment grants to meet the costs asso­ci­at­ed with course atten­dance. You can also find a list of grants and schol­ar­ships offered by exter­nal providers, such as the Health Work­force Schol­ar­ship Pro­gram, on our Path­way Incen­tives page.

View the answers to oth­er fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions about CRANAplus face-to-face courses.