Affiliates

Minnesota

Minnesota Comprehensive Advanced Life Support (CALS) originated in fall of 1996. The idea was conceived out of frustration with the fact that emergency and critical care results in rural communities were not keeping pace with the advances being made in urban centers. Dr. Darrell L. Carter, a family physician in Granite Falls, and Dr. Ernest Ruiz, then Chief of Emergency Medicine at Hennepin County Medical Center, shared a similar vision in changing this.

A working group representing the whole emergency team (physicians, nurses, PA/NP, EMT-P) began a three-year project to develop what was to grow into the CALS curriculum and that today has evolved into the CALS Program. The first CALS course was conducted in 1996 by this grassroots coalition of volunteer health care providers with the goal of improving patient care and outcomes in rural settings.

Now in its 27th year of providing emergency care training, the CALS Program has active affiliate programs in five states (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana, Maine and Alaska) and has hosted courses in 10 states, three Canadian provinces and nine countries. The CALS Program extends its reach by training all United States embassy medical personnel around the globe for the Department of State. In December 2022, CALS was pleased to provide its 487th CALS Provider Course in Minnesota.