Stop the Bleed Class Trains its 500th Student

The Department of Surgery's Trauma Program reached a milestone in their support of the National Stop the Bleed (STB) Campaign in February. Mirta Siderman, a supervisor from COACH for Kids®, was the 500th person to attend an STB course.

The STB course teaches participants how to recognize life-threatening bleeding and then allows time to practice the skills in hands-on situations. Programs such as STB help support the Cedars-Sinai mission by continuing to provide community service.

Introduced by the Obama administration in 2015, STB was created after learning that uncontrolled bleeding led to many deaths in the December 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

While law enforcement and other nonmedical first responders were the initial focus of STB, there's since been a national call to reach as many civilians as possible. Now overseen by the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma, STB's objective is to make bleeding-control techniques as accessible to laypeople as training is for CPR.

Registration for upcoming STB classes is available through the Department of Surgery Trauma Program's website.