Maintenance of Certification in Anesthesiology (MOCA®) has many critics who have questioned the value of simulation- based practice performance and assessment (Part IV). To those skeptics, I offer a personal account where the skills I learned during a MOCA® course saved a patient’s life. I was called to a “Code Blue” and arrived to find chest compressions in progress for pulseless electrical activity (PEA). The patient had no I.V. access (despite many attempts) and we were unable to administer ACLS medications. Knowing this patient needed immediate vascular access, I obtained an intraosseous (IO) needle and placed an IO line in the tibia. I then administered epinephrine and fluid and quickly achieved a sustainable cardiac rhythm with a return of peripheral pulses.
The most interesting part of my encounter is that I had never before placed an IO line. I participated in the MOCA® course at Penn...
