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Objective: To evaluate the experience, opinions and moral positions of French emergency physicians (EP) who had taken a paediatric university course on parental presence during child cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and to compare it with the responses of nurses on their teams., Methods: A questionnaire was sent to 550 EPs who had taken the course during the previous 6 years; the EPs were also asked to give a copy of the questionnaire to nurses on their staff. Data were collected on experience of parental presence during child CPR, opinions on the practice, arguments for and against parental presence, and the moral positions of respondents regarding their perception of life and the sharing of medical/parental power in the decision-making process., Results: 343 responses were analysed, 47% from EPs (29% response rate) and 53% from nurses. 52% of respondents had experienced parental presence during child CPR, but it had been the physician's wish on only 6% of these occasions. Only 17% of respondents favoured parental presence, with EPs (27%) being favourable more often than nurses (12%). The reasons against parental presence were psychological trauma for the parents, risk of interference with medical management, and care team stress. Respondents not in favour of parental presence expressed this view more for medical reasons than for parent-related reasons. The physicians not in favour of parental presence espoused a moral position predicated on medical power., Conclusions: A majority of EPs and nurses were reluctant to have parents present during child CPR. Their attitude involved medical paternalism.

We propose an intraosseous (IO) procedure scale for evaluating the insertion process during simulation. A 12-item scale for assessing the performance of IO insertion into the proximal tibia reproduces all the steps of a manual procedure. The performance of 31 emergency physicians was evaluated with this scale on a mannequin simulating a decompensated shock in a 6-month-old infant.Our IO procedure scale was reliable, with a very high interobserver reproducibility. The application of this scale to procedures yielded higher scores for successful than for unsuccessful procedures (P < 10), a 93.5% success rate, and a mean placement time of 2 minutes 23 seconds. Although designed for a manual insertion of an IO needle during simulation, this scale may be also suitable for use in clinical settings.