First Aid Course Objectives

Firs aid can mean the difference between life and death. First aid, which can be defined as the emergency medical help, is essential in a number of contexts, including burns, choking, cuts, electrical shocks, fever, fractures and poisoning. First aid is also required in instances of spider bites, strokes and heart attacks. First aid courses are designed to teach people to deal with these and other medical emergencies.

Any first aid course needs to teach the students that the first thing they need to do in an emergency situation is to stop the cause that produced the injury in the first place from continuing to damage the person's body further. For example, if the person is suffering from an electrical shock, you first need to turn off the source of electricity or, if that is not possible, you must move the source away from the person by using a nonconducting object made of plastic, cardboard or wood.

A first aid course must teach how to manage time in emergency situations. For example, if there are many injured people as a result of a fire or an explosion, the person who can provide first aid needs to be able to know which injuries can wait and which require immediate medical attention, or else the people might die. According to Dr. Justin L. Kaplan in "The Merck Manuals," the priority in providing first aid should be inspect a person's airway, breathing and circulation (the ABCs). Any serious problems in these areas are always fatal if not corrected. Naturally, first attend to people with ABC problems.

The primary objective of any first aid course is, beyond doubt, to teach students how to actually provide first aid. In addition to providing instructions on how to deal with specific conditions, such as burns and spider bites, the first aid course needs to offer students an overview of human biology, providing information on how blood circulates through the body, what bone structures people have and how cardiovascular system works.

Another objective of the first aid course is to teach students their limits. Whatever the scope of your course, it is impossible to cover all the information that medical students learn for years to become surgeons and ambulance doctors. Accordingly, the course should instruct the students to call the ambulance or deliver the injured person to the hospital, when substantial medical assistance required.