Einstein Physicians Teach Bronx Teens Life-Saving CPR Skills

Last spring, Apurva Motivala received a shocking and upsetting phone call: a childhood friend from India had died suddenly from cardiac arrest on the day of his 32nd birthday. His friend had been enjoying a sunny day, flying a kite with friends, when his heart abruptly stopped beating. Unfortunately, no one present was able to do the one thing that might have saved his life — perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). By the time the paramedics arrived at the scene, the tragedy had already stolen his life.

Drs. Apurva Motivala and Karthik MurugiahThe survival rate of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is a mere two to three percent. However, when CPR is started within four minutes of cardiac arrest, the likelihood of survival doubles and this rate nearly triples when CPR is initiated by a bystander compared to when started by an emergency responder. Unfortunately, the percentage of the general population that has received CPR training is just too small to guarantee that a bystander will always be present when someone suddenly enters cardiac arrest. Two physicians at Einstein, Drs. Apurva Motivala and Karthik Murugiah, are striving to increase the amount of people certified in administering effective CPR, beginning with New York City high school students.

“Despite the plethora of technological and medical advances throughout the past half-century, it’s frightening that, in over 50 years, someone experiencing an out-of-hospital cardiac event still has such a slim chance of survival,” said Dr. Motivala, a cardiology fellow at Einstein’s University Hospital, Montefiore Medical Center. “CPR has proven to be one of the most effective therapeutic interventions for sudden cardiac arrest and can literally make the difference between life and death.”

To address the issue, Dr. Motivala teamed up with Dr. Murugiah, a resident in internal medicine at Jacobi Medical Center (another Einstein hospital affiliate), to design a program that seeks to generate a population of CPR-trained high school students in New York City, and eventually, throughout the country.
The Bronx High School for the Visual Arts was
the first stop for CPR lessons that Drs. Motivala
and Murugiah are providing Bronx high school
students through a grant from the American
Heart Association. The doctors, who both share a passion for medicine and research, are a few steps closer to realizing this goal since their proposal to the New York City Community Impact Grant was accepted and funded by the American Heart Association (AHA).

“CPR is easy, free, and requires no medical instruments — only the skill is needed in order to save a life,” said Dr. Murugiah. “With proper training and practice, students will be confident, knowledgeable, and more likely to perform CPR, which may ultimately increase the survival rate of cardiac arrest victims.”

The project, supported by a $20,000 grant from the AHA, was initiated during the second week of February at the Bronx High School for the Visual Arts. Dr. George York, principal of the school that is a neighbor to Einstein, was ecstatic when he learned that his ninth-grade students — approximately 140 teens — would be receiving CPR training and certification from AHA-certified professionals.

“We are absolutely thrilled that our students will be learning this life-saving skill,” Dr. York declared. “In addition to empowering our students, this training will boost the confidence of the students because they will know that they are valuable to the community. This is perhaps one of the most valuable lessons our students will learn this year.”

At the beginning of the first class, the students, behaving like typical teenagers, were initially distracted by their friends and their other classmates. However, their attention was
Students apply the lessons they learn on special
CPR dummies.soon averted when Dr. Murugiah proclaimed that by the end of the 90-minute class, each student would leave with the ability to save another life.

“Wow, it’s almost like I’ll be a doctor,” said a teen wearing a backwards Yankees cap. Another student related how she once witnessed a lifeguard giving CPR to someone at the beach. Suddenly the gossip from the previous class was no longer exciting — the students were now focused on becoming lifesavers.

Before receiving the official training by an AHA professional who is assisting Drs. Motivala and Murugiah with their project, the students were asked to complete a brief survey that will evaluate their knowledge of CPR, as well as their likelihood to perform the procedure on family, friends, and strangers. This survey will be given to the students again, in three months, in order to assess whether the training has changed their willingness to intervene if they are witness to someone in cardiac arrest.

“My name is Nemo, like the little orange fish,” exclaimed an enthusiastic voice from the front of the classroom. As student giggles subsided, he continued, “Today I’m going to teach you the skills to save a life, because the first-responders in an emergency are not the police or paramedics. The first-responders are you!”

Nemo, who is a CPR instructor from the AHA, as well as a member of the New York City Fire Department, proceeded to engage the students with his boisterous and cheerful performance. The students responded, with the classroom of 30 teens shouting their answers in unison to the questions that Nemo posed to them.

Over the one-week period, each day a different group of 30 ninth graders were trained during the course of their regular school hours. By the end of the week, the entire ninth grade class at the Bronx High School for the Visual Arts had received CPR training and certification.
Dr. George York (orange vest), principal of the
Bronx High School for the Visual Arts, observes
as students learn CPR skillsIn addition to the training, each student was given a “CPR Anytime Kit” from the AHA that included a DVD, instructional booklet, and inflatable mannequin so that the students can continue to practice their newly acquired skills.

“When the students bring home these kits, as well as their enthusiasm and confidence, they will be able to spread their knowledge of this life-saving technique to their friends and family, thus increasing awareness throughout the entire community,” said Dr. Murugiah.

“The short-term goal of this project is to demonstrate that high school students can be trained to perform effective CPR so that we can use this as a model for the rest of the city, state, and country,” explained Dr. Motivala. “Ultimately, we want to develop a larger part of the population that is trained and certified in CPR and we believe this expansion will drastically increase the survival rate of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.”

Through their CPR project with the AHA, Drs. Motivala and Murugiah exemplify the spirit of the Einstein community: in addition to their day-to-day profession as cardiologists, both are reaching out to the community, raising social awareness, and making healthcare more accessible. Moreover, because of their efforts, local students are learning life-saving skills while also discovering the excitement of science and medicine.

Dr. Murugiah summed it up, noting, “As the program continues at other Bronx high schools, we can only hope that the first-responder to a victim in cardiac arrest may in fact be a teen playing basketball nearby rather than a paramedic stuck in traffic on the Bruckner Expressway.”