Although freshman orientation sessions are already packed full with advising services and welcome activities, Emory University, located in Atlanta, Ga., added a CPR certification class to summer schedules for the first time.
Tracy Brown, Emory Health Sciences spokesperson, said the student-run Emergency Medical Services, a branch of the School of Medicine at Emory, is determined to train this year’s 1,300 freshman in CPR in an effort to increase campus safety and health awareness.
“By the end of the sessions (this summer) and up until now, [EMS] has trained 400 students, which is about a third of the class,” Brown said. “Throughout the year, training will continue.”
The training sessions are not required for the freshman class and are voluntarily organized by the student EMS group. Emory ran a program similar to the orientation session classes last year, said Kevin Smith, senior and chief of Emory University’s EMS.
“Last year was our first year. We started a campuswide CPR initiative, and we were the largest CPR initiative campaign nationwide,” Smith added.
Smith hopes to continue the freshman orientation sessions, but wants to branch out to other research centers to include staff and faculty.
Similar to Emory, the University of Wisconsin has a student-run EMS service that works at events around campus to ensure safety. Many UW students in the EMS service are also in the process of obtaining Emergency Medical Technician certificates, which would allow them to certify other students, according to Sarah Van Orman, UW University Health Services executive director.
Van Orman said the EMS services do not usually offer CPR training sessions to students because there are other services offering the training on campus, such as the fire and police departments, and employees in residence halls.
“To have students know something critical like this is definitely a good idea,” Van Orman added.
Dan Timm, associate faculty member for the kinesiology department at UW, said CPR certification is important, and added that the kinesiology department is another great resource for learning how to administer and perform CPR.
“In an ideal world, every person would know how to properly administer CPR,” Timm said. “But we don’t live in a perfect world.”
According to Timm, obstruction of the throat is the most common life-threatening emergency, and having more people trained could save lives.
“Although there are multiple people around campus who know how to use CPR when the time comes, what if a student is in a library where no one is trained or is unable to care for them in a timely manner?” Timm said.