According to Newman in Hippocrates’ Shadow, Advanced Cardiac Life Support (A.C.L.S.) doesn’t work.  This has been my experience as well (there are always those very rare exceptions).  As the discussion of ‘fixing’ healthcare looms, one place to cut costs would be at the end of life.  I am continually amazed by the number of very elderly who do not have Do Not Resuscitate (D.N.R.) orders who arrive to the Emergency Department dead, and we have to try and resuscitate a dead person.  The cost of these end of life measures is astounding.  

“The ACLS method is used on more than a million people every year in the United States, and for millions more around the world.* This is notable in light of a vast body of evidence that all leads to the same conclusion: it doesn’t work.”-Hippocrates’ Shadow