Management of ventricular fibrillation by doctors in cardiac arrest teams

Successful management of a cardiac arrest in accident and emergency departments or other specialised hospital units can be expected to result in a survival rate of around 50% initially and around 20% after one year.1 The protocol for managing ventricular fibrillation and the importance of rapid defibrillation were emphasised in the European Resuscitation Council guidelines 1992 on advanced life support.2 3 We investigated knowledge of these guidelines among doctors in cardiac arrest teams with respect to the management of ventricular fibrillation. In December 1993 and January 1994 we conducted a telephone survey of 113 doctors in the cardiac arrest teams from 62 teaching and district hospitals in England and Wales. These hospitals were randomly selected from the 1993 directory of the British Association for Accident and Emergency Medicine. The …