There was a lot of life-saving learning taking place at the Mall of Georgia in Buford last weekend. Twenty-five PCOM Georgia students volunteered their time to teach community members National Two Step CPR from noon to 4 p.m.

Second-year medical student Brittney Henderson (DO ’24) led the event. She said, “National Two Step CPR is an important training that saves lives, and we are so proud to serve our community.”

This simplified technique teaches participants the benefits of cardiac pulmonary resuscitation without utilizing mouth-to-mouth rescue. As the name implies National Two Step CPR consists of two steps:

1. Call 911

2. Push hard and fast in the center of the chest until help arrives. 

Calling the event “a total success,” Sahara Peters (DO ’24), DO Council secretary, said that nearly 175 people, including entire families, received this important instruction and practiced on life-like task trainers on loan from the college’s Simulation Center.

Sponsored locally by the President’s Community Wellness Initiative, the DO Council,  and the PCOM Georgia Emergency Club, National Two Step CPR was created by a group of medical students and the Texas College of Emergency Physicians in 2016 and is now offered in 15 states. 

Rachel Rabaioli-Brosius (DO ’24) handled logistics and materials for the event. She said, “As a second year medical student, I appreciated the opportunity to be engaged with our community and represent PCOM Georgia.”

Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine Donald Penney, MD, oversaw the event on behalf of faculty members. He serves as the chair of Clinical Education and as the Emergency Medicine clerkship director at PCOM Georgia. He said he was proud of the “great participation” by PCOM Georgia’s student body and how well received the event was by the public.

National Two Step CPR is an annual event aimed at engaging and educating citizens on the benefits of compressions-only/hands-only CPR. Since inception, this project has trained more than 22,000 in the proper compressions-only CPR technique, with the help of 700 medical students across the nation each year.

Henderson thanked the Mall of Georgia, student volunteers and faculty members, and the President’s Community Wellness Initiative for support.

With a strong commitment to student volunteer efforts and community wellness, PCOM President and CEO Jay S. Feldstein, DO ‘81, established the President’s Community Wellness Initiative to enhance the culture of holistic health and well-being on PCOM’s campuses and in the communities they serve. The CWI aims to promote cross-campus collaboration in educational and health services programming and resources to support the physical, mental, nutritional and environmental wellness of the College’s communities in Philadelphia and in Suwanee and Moultrie, Georgia. Focus areas include direct patient care, health and wellness education, and clinical and community-based research.