Copyright 2006 The Press Enterprise, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
By MIKE SCHWARTZ
The Press Enterprise (Riverside, CA.)
Cindy Tait isn’t your garden-variety registered nurse.
Tait is more akin to a one-woman army — engaged in a never-ending battle against all the bad things that can transpire after catastrophic injuries, strokes and heart attacks.
Tait, 47, is president and owner of the Center for Healthcare Education in Riverside, a resuscitation training school. It’s where medical personnel, police, firefighters and other first responders train in the life-saving science and art of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
“We teach what to do in those few moments before someone suffers a cardiac arrest,” Tait said last week at the center, her little therapy dog, Bella Rapha, tagging along beside her.
“Whether students are laymen or health care providers, we show how to recognize what’s happening and do a full assessment,” said Tait, a fit, petite woman with a mega-watt smile .
The center’s varied programs include interactive CD and Internet TV instruction, video production, medical newsletters, seminars, printed materials and certification review courses, as well as CPR training for the general public.
Tait estimates that the center’s programs — which have trained more than 100,000 people over more than two decades — “have impacted thousands of resuscitations” and saved untold lives nationwide.
“That’s why I do this,” she said. Training gives people the confidence and competence to assess and resuscitate. “I feel this is where I can make a difference.”
Tait enjoys walking into a hospital emergency room or peering into fire engine cabs and spotting people she’s trained. “These are my friends and colleagues,” she said. “What a good feeling to know I was part of their education and can help keep them current in their knowledge and skills.”
The center has cultivated alliances with more than 400 hospitals, and uncounted numbers of emergency medical service departments trained by instructors “bred” by Tait.
“We subcontract with more than 350 instructors in all 50 states,” she said. “We cherry-pick the good ones, recruiting them to teach for us. Some work with us a dozen times a month, while others twice a year.”
Rhonda Emerson, an operating-room educator at Parkview Hospital in Riverside, sat at a table gazing at a wall-mounted screen as she brushed up on pediatric advanced-life-support procedures.
“I have to teach this to 34 emergency-room nurses on Friday, so I’d better be up on my game,” said Emerson, a registered nurse. “This place is so user-friendly I can call for support practically 2 4/7 if I have any question.”
CUTTING-EDGE TRAINING
In January, Tait and her full-time staff of seven moved into a spacious new offices near Central Avenue in Riverside. Training paraphernalia clutters the center’s bins, shelves and polished wood tables. CPR mannequins, from preemie to adult sizes, peer eerily out of duffle bags. The latest portable defibrillators and electrocardiogram stand ready for simulations.
Tait says the state-of-the-art electrocardiograms can measure expired carbon dioxide and oxygen levels in the bloodstream as well as determine if a patient has had a heart attack.
“They can even tell which coronary artery is involved,” she said.
Christine Sullivan, EMS nurse educator for the Corona Fire Department, said her background as a nurse in emergency rooms where doctors always were around never prepared her to read the newer electrocardiograms.
“So when I was charged with teaching firefighters how to do it, I turned to Cindy,” Sullivan said.
After her training, Sullivan said, she could then pass the knowledge on to Corona’s firefighters.
“Now my guys can recognize anything,” Sullivan said.
The center also teaches emergency medical personnel how to use the state-of-the-art “Auto-Pulse” cardiac support pump. This automatic, battery-powered strap-on unit can perform cardio pulmonary resuscitation more effectively than trained professionals.
“The device is like a giant blood pressure cuff around the chest,” she explained.
The $14,000 pump improves blood flow to the heart and brain during cardiac arrest. It also helps free up rescuers to focus on other live-saving interventions and eliminate fatigue .
Although approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration more than three years ago, the pump still isn’t in wide use - not only due to its cost but the medical community’s slow acceptance of new technology.
“Change comes hard sometimes, and it’s a tragedy,” Tait said. “Physicians like studies to be completely unequivocal. But sometimes you need to take an educated guess and go forth with new techniques.”
Tait said the pump is not designed for the average person to use. “But for the fire station on the corner it’s great,” she said.
VARIED NURSING CAREER
Tait’s career began more than 26 years ago as an emergency medical technician on a horse ranch in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. After returning to her native Southern California, the Riverside Poly High School grad worked as a full-time paramedic, and then obtained her registered nursing license in 1991. Over several years she gained heavy experience as an emergency room, ICU and OR nurse. Seeking further challenges, Tait became an flight nurse.
Established in 1978, the California Educational Update (as the center was then called) was created to provide vocational advancement courses to nurses. In 1985 it expanded to include training for pre-hospital care providers, mobile ICU nurses and flight crews. When the original founder, Roberta Smith, retired 14 years ago, Tait took over even as she continued as a flight nurse.
Focusing on emergency medicine courses, she changed the school’s name in 1994 to the Center for Healthcare Education to better reflect its mission and growth in the region. Since then, the facility has offered more than 60 different courses to more than 100,000 medical professionals worldwide.
Clients have included government agencies and university medical centers, she said, as well as families of children with congenital heart disease.
Among the most popular courses is American Heart Association CPR certification, pediatric resuscitation courses, trauma care and emergency medicine.
Tait also has written more than 60 publications, most associated with training videos in which she often is the on-screen instructor.
“She not only can write scripts but make medical training understandable on camera,” said Denny Hare, executive producer of Total Project Management, a Daytona Beach, Fla.-area medical video producer who has worked with Tait since 1993.
Tait has authored a 300-page training manual about interpreting electrocardiograms, which is scheduled for publication by McGraw-Hill in the fall. It will come with a DVD, PowerPoint presentation and other instructional materials. The publisher expects a readership of 50,000.
“I just love what I do,” said Tait. “I get out of bed each morning and hit the floor running. I can’t complain. At some point, hard work and midnight oil pay off.”