Jane Fitch MD, prior CRNA, now Anesthesiologist elected president ASA

Specialties CRNA

Published

Game over people... ASA president... Jane Fitch. Thoughts?

Dr. Jane is just another CRNA being used by the ASA.

Specializes in Anesthesia.
Dr. Jane is just another CRNA being used by the ASA.

I would say she is an MDA using her background to further her political ambitions.

Specializes in ER, Trauma ICU, CVICU.
Sadly, you rely on the pablum you're spoon-fed from the AANA to form your opinions, because they clearly don't have a factual basis. On the other hand, I have personal first-hand experience dealing with the CRNA lobby over a 30+ year career. I know what I'm talking about - you're fantasizing.

AA's were created because of the overall manpower shortage in anesthesia that existed 40 years ago. Back when the vast majority of CRNA's had no degree of any sort, just a nursing diploma and anesthesia certificate, AA's came along with a masters-prepared provider, a totally new concept at the time.

You only consider us a political tool because we don't agree with you. I'm sure anyone who agrees with the ASA is someone you would consider a political tool, regardless of the initials after their name.

Blah, blah, blah, on the next part of your post. YOU haven't been practicing 150 years.

Again - the hypocrisy is blinding. Holding up the AANA as a bastion of truth, justice, and the American way is just profoundly absurd - that you can't see it, or admit it, speaks volumes.

I am a lowly SRNA and really probably shouldn't even be posting to this thread. I am sure you have many valuable experiences during your 30 year career, and could certainly teach me a lot!

The problem with AA's is that while you may have been needed 40 years ago, the need has drastically decreased. The need and cost-effectiveness of AAs is no longer relevant. Also, the ASA didn't start rallying for AAs until they really started feeling the heat from the AANA. They aren't your friends! The ASA only cares about you because you are (in their minds) an alternative to independent CRNAs. The truth is that state regulations, certification requirements, and practice standards regarding AAs are inconsistent. It isn't about bias or politics. I don't mean to be rude at all, but the need for your profession is solely based on ASA politics. The evidence for cost-effectiveness and quality standards just isn't there.

Old thread I know. I am not even in nursing school yet, but I've read Watchful Care and I follow all this closely to understand what I am getting myself into.

That graph in the video was so inaccurate. It showed 1000-2000 hours of training for CRNA and 12,000-16000 for MD. What? Do they start counting the hours from your first day of med school until you are done with your residency to come up with that number?

On a sidenote. I had a conversation with a girl the other day who had been accepted to the medical school in my town and told her I was waiting to hear back if I got in to nursing school. She asked me what kind of nursing and I said that down the road I would like to pursue CRNA and that one of the best schools for it was in Virginia (where we both live). I asked her what kind of doctor she wanted to be and she said an anesthesiologist and went on to explain what an anesthesiologist does! She clearly had no idea what type of nurse a CRNA was! Yes, I used the letters rather than saying "nurse anesthetist", but you would think someone who wants to pursue this specialty as a MD would know what CRNA means.

Specializes in Internal medicine/critical care/FP.

bet she gets paid a lot to bash crnas

You are aware a general residency is 80 hrs. a week right? At 50 weeks a year (ACGME accreditation requirements only allow a max of two weeks’ vacation each year during residency) and Anesthesia being a four year residency equals 16,000 hours. That does not factor in 2 years of clinical in med school or any time they will do post residency in a fellowship. Even if you factor in a decreasing workload for the 3rd and 4th year that is well within 12,000-16,000 applied clinical hours.

Specializes in Anesthesia.
You are aware a general residency is 80 hrs. a week right? At 50 weeks a year (ACGME accreditation requirements only allow a max of two weeks’ vacation each year during residency) and Anesthesia being a four year residency equals 16,000 hours. That does not factor in 2 years of clinical in med school or any time they will do post residency in a fellowship. Even if you factor in a decreasing workload for the 3rd and 4th year that is well within 12,000-16,000 applied clinical hours.

Let's put that in perspective:

1. That 80 hrs is a max not a minimum number of hours. I trained with anesthesiology residents. I am sure that sometimes the residents did 80hrs or even more hours a week with call, but that was hardly the normal. I am sure they did those hours, because the SRNAs were doing the same amount of hours and were integrated into the same hospital call schedule.

2. Anesthesiology residency is 3 years with a 1 year internship, so since the ASA is so found of discounting nursing critical care experience I tend to discount the internship year which may or may not have added anything worthwhile towards anesthesia training. It sure didn't help with the overall knowledge base of anesthesiology residents starting out their 1st year of residency.

3. MDA residents spend their training between ICU, anesthesia/OB, and usually pain services. When it is all said and done the residents I trained with did approximately the same amount of OR cases that we did during training. The biggest difference was that most residents weren't interested in doing the normal everyday cases and most tried to do the "bigger" speciality cases, but guess what most the "bigger" planned out cases aren't where you will normally have the most complications. Those patients in those "bigger" cases are usually so optimized for surgery that you mainly just follow a anesthesia recipe and manage the drips.

4. IMHO medical school rotations are mostly a joke, and they count very little to the overall MDA knowledge base. I taught a lot of the medical students as an SRNA during their anesthesia rotations mainly d/t the MDA residents not wanting to train the medical students. I even know of one medical student that didn't even bother coming to the OR for her anesthesia rotation, and she just sat in the break room the entire time.

People can count all the theoretical hours they want for MDAs, but most of it is just plain BS. That IMHO is one of the reasons why CRNAs have proven for the last 150 years to be just as safe or safer than our MDA counterparts.

Specializes in CRNA.

Anesthesia residents don't put in 80 hours a week every week-some weeks-but it's actually a very small number of weeks. I would guess the average is 50 some hours a week for 3 years.

Specializes in SICU.

People can count all the theoretical hours they want for MDAs, but most of it is just plain BS. That IMHO is one of the reasons why CRNAs have proven for the last 150 years to be just as safe or safer than our MDA counterparts.

And this, really, is the main point, and the only one that matters. Say, hypothetically, that MDAs have to go through 12 or 20 years of anesthesia residency before they begin practicing. If the data keeps showing that CRNAs are just as safe as these MDAs, we can talk hours and cases and training all day long, it just doesn't matter. The question isn't who spends more time in training, the question is who's training is the most efficient? Who receives the necessary training without wasteful, additional years.

Doctors used to be the only ones who could put in IVs (see reference). Now my techs can do it. Whenever there is a new standard of care set, the market then works to perform that standard as efficiently as possible. Anesthesia is no different. Doctors should continue doing what they do best - reaching for better standards of care. That means researching, inventing, and experimenting. However, attempting to guard current territory in the name of patient safety, in the face of much research negating that argument, is not only unbecoming, but its futile. The market will win. Make all the silly Youtube videos you want about "When seconds count..." The market will win.

History of Intravenous catheters

By all means let's discount all that residency time spent in "unrelated" areas like cardiology, pulmonology, ICU, neurology, etc. Clearly none of that is useful to an anesthesiologist.

And of course a couple years of ZERO clinical time and a bunch of graduate level political pandering and politics has all the relevance in the world for an online DNAP and improves patient care sooooooooo much!

Specializes in Anesthesia.
By all means let's discount all that residency time spent in "unrelated" areas like cardiology, pulmonology, ICU, neurology, etc. Clearly none of that is useful to an anesthesiologist.

And of course a couple years of ZERO clinical time and a bunch of graduate level political pandering and politics has all the relevance in the world for an online DNAP and improves patient care sooooooooo much!

Got any research to show all those clinical rotations make MDAs safer and/or better anesthesia than CRNAs?

Got any research to show all those clinical rotations make MDAs safer and/or better anesthesia than CRNAs?

Got any research to show that all the non clinical BS in your online DNAP is worth a penny as far as improving patient care?

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