Educational Graffiti: Better Use of the Bathroom Wall

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Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) lessens mortality and morbidity following cardiac arrest and has gained widespread acceptance. However, the cognitive and psychomotor skills achieved at the initial training sessions tend to deteriorate fairly quickly. Experience or retraining can help to preserve these skills. The authors felt that repetitive exposure to the principal facts might achieve the same purpose. Furthermore they viewed the time spent in the bathroom (lavatory) as an untapped educational resource for instructing a group of individuals; a suitable poster taped on a bathroom wall would repeatedly present the key information to a captive audience. Judging by the graffiti already present, the audience is presumably accustomed to reading in this environment. This paper reports two trials: in the first, posters were displayed in an undergraduate dormitory followed by a test of theoretical knowledge; in the second, the posters were displayed in hospital bathrooms used by nurses followed by a test of theoretical and practical ability.