I am seriously considering giving up teaching AHA courses.  I am a CPR instructor, ACLS, PALS…you name it and I am giving it up.  I am going to let it lapse.  Sell the manikins. Take down the website.

“Why?” you ask.

Because I just can’t complete with dishonest people, and I can no longer stomach lazy students.  These are two bold statements, so I will take a moment to explore both.

Full disclosure: I make money from teaching AHA courses.  Let’s get that out of the way right now.  However, I make money from teaching AHA courses in the same way that healthcare workers make money from sick people.  I have to make a living.  I chose to do something good for humanity with that time I spend making a buck.  So I teach people how to save lives.  But just like any organization, even non-profits and hospitals, if the money is not there I have to shut the doors.  There have been a couple of instances as of late where I have had to make a choice between continuing with a course that was actually going to lose money, or simply canceling the course.  Guess what I chose.

Let’s start with the dishonest people.  If you are a healthcare worker, you have probably gotten one of those clandestine CPR cards.  You know the ones I am talking about.  One day you go to work and an administrator tells you, “Hey, the database says your CPR card is out of date.”  You check your wallet and have your “oh crap I can’t work” moment.  At this point you either call that “guy you know” or sometimes even the administrator will take you to the office and make a card for you.  The person handing you the card says something like, “Hey, you were at that class last week, right?  Yeah, here it is…your name is on this roster…you attended this course, right?”  And you walk out of the office with your freshly printed CPR card, and all is right with the world.  Or is it?

Personally, I think it is ridiculous for certain kinds of healthcare workers to have to take CPR every two years.  That is not the AHA’s fault.  It is the laws of the state you live in, or the organization for which you work.  They made that mandate.  Not the AHA.  Take a look on your card, it says “Recommended Renewal Date.”  That’s just what that is: a recommendation.  If your card goes out of date on June 30^th of 2009, do you somehow magically forget how to do chest compressions on July 1^st?  But someone has to keep standards, so we just blindly follow what the AHA recommends.  But there it is.  A standard.  In writing.  So, being the stupidly honest guy that I am, I follow it.  To the letter.  To a fault.

I have always been one of those people who is anal retentive about teaching.  I know full well that a group of paramedics do not need to be taught CPR.  So I modify the class a bit to make it interesting.  I am sure that the black helicopters with the AHA logo on the side are about to swoop down and take me out for modifying their precious class, but that is exactly what I do.  If the class seems to be an experienced bunch, I will put the video away for a second and give a deep lecture on why the AHA made so many changes in 2005.  I will talk about perfusion pressures, thoracic pressure, and introduce some of these new adjuncts like the ResQPod.  In other words, no one leaves my class without learning something.  I will make the class and the experience worth your time and money.

Problem is, no one wants that.  No one, and I mean no one wants a good class.  They want a card.  They want it in their wallet.  They want it yesterday.  And, by the way, how dare I try to actually teach them something.

Case in point: a PALS class I taught last year.  An administrator at a local hospital called me with a proposal.  “Hey Buck, I have a friend who is a very experienced nurse who needs PALS yesterday.  She needs it as a prerequisite to a graduate program.  I know you don’t do private classes, but this would be easy as she is a pedi-nurse.  She is super professional, and a good student.  I would consider it a personal favor and she will make it worth your time.”  I said I would do it for $450, she agreed, and she met me at the fire station.  She wanted to sign the roster right away, and was a bit pushy about it.  I said, “Hang on, we have all day.  I am going to fill it out during the first video.”  She got pretty tense, but I pressed on and started filling out paperwork.  There were only two of us in the classroom, but we watched videos, we had skills stations, I gave mini lectures on technique.  Finally, she just had enough and snapped, “Look! I have to be somewhere with my family.  I thought I was just going to get a card and leave.  What is the hold up here?”

At that point I got nasty and said, “First of all, how dishonest do you think I am?  Did you really think I could be bribed into forging paperwork for $450?  I am not that kind of person.  You hired me for a full day’s work, and that’s what you are getting.”  We had a knock-down, drag out argument  that ended in her completing the course while pissed off, and me telling her to calm down every five minutes.

After the class she called our mutual friend and had the gall to actually complain about me.  She wasn’t just griping to her friend, she wanted to file a formal complaint and wanted to know what form to fill out.  My friend actually had to explain what was wrong with this.  In the end my friend said, “Yeah, you do that.  Come on down here and fill out a written complaint stating that he actually tried to teach you something, and you just wanted to bribe him for a card.  Let’s send that up the chain and see who wins that battle.”

To this day I refuse all requests for private courses no matter how much money is dangled in front of me.  And boy do they dangle.  And boy do they get pushy.  I had a doctor call me last year and offer over $1000 for a private ACLS class. This offer was the culmination of a 15 minute begging and pleading session in which I had explained several times that I could not help him.  His group had placed him on suspension until he got his card, so he started to rant and rave at me.  I finally cut him off and said, “Sir have a nice day,” and hung up on him.  He immediately called back and started screaming at the top of his lungs, threatening to turn me in.  At this point I unleashed,  “Really!?  Turn me into who?  The ACLS cops?  I hear they play hardball, man.  I’m quaking in my boots!  Oh lord, don’t send me to the AHA dungeon!  I won’t make it down there!  Hey, let me ask you a question.  Do you yell at the clerk who has to close the store?  Do you yell at the Starbucks that is out of your hazelnut coffee?  Do you yell at the mechanic that doesn’t have a part for your car in stock?  Listen up.  My store is closed.  We’re all out of ACLS.  You’ll have to try the place down the road.”  After that he came unglued and started screaming at me that he was going to tell everyone he knows to never take one of my courses.  To which I said, “If your friends are anything like you, please, please, tell every single one of them never to call me.  If all your friends are pushy, entitled, overly-demanding, elitist schmucks like you, then I don’t want to teach them either.  Now if you have anything else to say about this you are just going to have to talk to the dial tone you are about to hear.  Now go unfuck yourself, and don’t call me back.”  Click.

I have to admit, that felt awful good, but this is probably the reason why I never really made any money teaching AHA courses.  I am simply too honest.  To this day, I have never had any repeat business from a CPR class.  I never got one of those coveted nursing home contracts.  Several other instructors have told me why several times:  “You actually, teach this shit?  That’s your problem.  If you actually do hold a real class, just put the video on, let them talk on the phone or leave the room, or whatever the hell they want to do.  Walk ‘em through the written test, and give ‘em their card.  You have got to give up all this high falutin’ nonsense about actually wanting to teach them something.”

And yet I run calls in nursing homes where the nurses are trying to squeeze the bag on the non-rebreather  like it’s a BVM.  I get nurses who yell at me to shock asystole.  I see whole crews of people doing CPR on someone who is telling them to stop.  All of these providers have cards in their pocket.

Yep.  You know it.  I know it.  That’s the world we live in.

“What about the laziness?” you ask.  I recently set up a PALS class for six doctors.  I reserved a room.  I hand delivered the books.  I hired another instructor to help.  I did all the paperwork.  I changed my schedule to accommodate them.  I probably spent about five or six hours on the project.  I had sent them an invoice for $1500, but they had not yet paid it.  At 9:30pm on the night before class, one of the doctors called me up and actually told me that three or four students were cancelling because it was going to be pretty outside, and they wanted to have a day off.  She wanted to know if I could still do the class for a reduced cost for the people that wanted to attend, and then do a makeup day for the other doctors later.

I let a long period of silence go by.  Then I said, “So let me get this straight.  It’s going to be pretty outside tomorrow.  And most of you want to play hooky.  So you want me to work two days for the same price that we had originally agreed for one day’s worth of work.  Is that actually what you are asking me?”

There was another long silence.  She decided to go for broke and simply said, “Yes, I guess that’s what I am asking you.”

“No.”

“Would you reconsider?”

“No.  If this is how little respect you have for me, we are done.  Either pay for the books and keep them, or have them packaged up and waiting for me to pick them up in your office by the end of the week.”

At which point she started to get testy with me, and I just hung up on her.  Not wanting to be thrown into the AHA dungeon, I didn’t engage her anymore.  I just ignored the next five phone calls she made and sent them to voice mail.

So that’s it.  Somewhere a few months back there was a straw that broke something and I stopped trying to put classes together.  Every request is met by an immediate we don’t have any ____________ classes scheduled in the near future.  Sorry we couldn’t help you.  You might want to call _______________.  He may be able to help.

I haven’t modified my website yet, but you know what?  I think I have just a few minutes left in my day after I post this.  Now what is the password to that website again?