There are things like that in any profession. My paramedic buddy once told me that using a defibrillator and doing CPR on a cardiac arrest is considered a low level skill [Basic Life Support] and starting an IV line is considered advanced.
But that’s obvious. Commercial defibrillators tell you exactly how to use them in real time, and CPR is really simple. Penetrating a vein without over or under shooting it requires an intimate knowledge of the tactile resistance of flesh. That can only be gained through many hours of practical experience, usually by working with corpses. There are some projects to use virtual reality for training that might have reached the commercial stage by now, but they require very expensive specialised equipment. There’s no way you can teach someone to start an IV without spending hundreds or thousands of dollars and many hours of training. CPR is just pump and blow, it’s easy.
Relevant xkcd
There are things like that in any profession. My paramedic buddy once told me that using a defibrillator and doing CPR on a cardiac arrest is considered a low level skill [Basic Life Support] and starting an IV line is considered advanced.
But that’s obvious. Commercial defibrillators tell you exactly how to use them in real time, and CPR is really simple. Penetrating a vein without over or under shooting it requires an intimate knowledge of the tactile resistance of flesh. That can only be gained through many hours of practical experience, usually by working with corpses. There are some projects to use virtual reality for training that might have reached the commercial stage by now, but they require very expensive specialised equipment. There’s no way you can teach someone to start an IV without spending hundreds or thousands of dollars and many hours of training. CPR is just pump and blow, it’s easy.