To Kevin and other students and practicing CRNAs

Furball · Dec 2, 2002

This thread is great! It's just reinforcing the fact that I get downright nauseous just THINKING about all the BS I'd have to endure if I actually go back to college for my BSN....ug!

MICU RN · Dec 3, 2002

Peeps:

Hang in there if you really want to become a crna, since it is the only route to becoming one. However, make sure you really want it because it is a long road to endure especially if you already have these types of feelings about nursing and how it is taught. I can totally relate and felt the same way and still do. So I am just sharing my experience. I think the crna route is great for people who are already nurses because it such an improvement and if they already enjoy nursing it is a win-win situation. But when I see people who really can't stand nursing say they want to become a crna, I think they would better off becoming a PA or MD. the main reason I feel this way is because you have to submit yourself to so much bullshit before you can even get to anest. school where if you go the PA or MD route it will be very difficult but at least it will be all science based, therefore, the person will probably be happier. This is just my take on it and how I feel at times as I trudge this road myself. By the way, I liked your story about the excessive amount of bed bath and bed making training you are receiveing. It reminds me of one of my co-workers who has been an ICU nurse for a while, she seems to be obsessed with making a perfect bed but don't ask her to many questions about her pt. or what we are doing for them medically to try to get them well. that is when I think I am really in the wrong profession, however, I am almost in a position to start applying to crna school, so I tolerate it and don't let it bother me. If I had to do it again, however, I would seriously look at the options I mentioned. A good place to work when you get your BSN is a teachinh hospital at least there you will be exposed to some interesting medical training which should keep you going until get to anesth. school. it has been my saving grace, I love being in a academic hospital, you will meet some really interesting teachers and learn a hell of alot more than advanced bed making.

Peeps Mcarthur · Dec 3, 2002

Anthony,

Thanks for the encouragement.

I think this quote from your post sums it up:

It reminds me of one of my co-workers who has been an ICU nurse for a while, she seems to be obsessed with making a perfect bed but don't ask her to many questions about her pt. or what we are doing for them medically to try to get them well.

That's how I see them(nursing vs medical) "criticaly thinking". I most definitely do not think that way, but I must persue a nursing path.

I have good reasons for focusing on nursing. It provides what I would call in golf terms a "bail-out target". Such a way of thinking would be used while taking a shot to a green surrounded by hazzards. You would target the part of the green with the most surface area regardless of pin position.............................or as my instructor would say....."you don't trade your par for a possible chance at birdie" (I keep telling my wife that golf stimulates my brain!).

PA prerequisites are focused on preparation for the medical model, and that's the way I really think. CRNA also focuses on science, but the prerequisites are so out of its focus that a year is required in an ICU for preparation. MD is out of reach financialy, and realisticly since I can't see making it through the selection process this late in life.

In this scenario CRNA is certainly the birdie, but I have to avoid the hazzards............An extra year, more difficult screening process, paying for school, burn-out from soccermomology curicculum.

It's clear that nursing is not a good fit for me academicly, but in regards to me actually doing the job, I think I'll be much better than most. I can arrive at an etiology by using my medical logic while the "nursing brains" are making beds correctly hoping that clean sheets will prevent skin breakdown and harassing the docs for every thinking decision. I won't be looking in a policy and procedure manual to tell me what to do, or chanting Maslow's Hierarchy, or trying to make a nursing "diagnosis", I will be looking at rythms, analyzing labs, and trying to learn what I'll never get in nursing school from the docs.

So here is Brad's Hierarchy of needs:)

1: CRNA (no explanation needed)

2:PA (an extra year will be needed anyway to fulfill prereqs, so that would make it equivalent time-wise to CRNA)

3:NP (I lose almost all the science, but can diagnose and work autonomously in a medical practice)

4: Specialize in a critical care setting, work for an agency( if GPA goes in the toilet 2nd to nursing theory. set my own hours and chose enviroments that are challenging to me.)

5: Be a golf bum. Take a shot at Senior Tour qualifying.:chuckle

I was just blathering on, but I fit golf in there and postponed the pain of having a test in Nursing 101 and a final with essay in Life-span Development.

Brad

l.rae · Dec 3, 2002

Originally posted by MICU RN
on it and how I feel at times as I trudge this road myself. By the way, I liked your story about the excessive amount of bed bath and bed making training you are receiveing. It reminds me of one of my co-workers who has been an ICU nurse for a while, she seems to be obsessed with making a perfect bed but don't ask her to many questions about her pt. or what we are doing for them medically to try to get them well. that is when I think I am really in the wrong profession, however, I am almost in a position to start applying to crna school, so I tolerate it and don't let it bother me. If I had to do it again, however, I would seriously look at the options I mentioned.

Anthony, please clarify why you think you might be in the wrong profession....sure, there are incompetnt nurses out there, but there are incompetant healthcare workers in ALL fields. Sadly, nursing school does NOT prepare nurses to do the job they are actually required to do after graduation and even sadder is the fact that some nurses never see the light and make the transition. However, having said that, most of the nurses l have worked with are awesome clinicians and critical thinkers...especially in a teaching hospital due to the fact nurses are put in the precarious position of gaurd-dogging the residents. I actually had to tell a first year resident he couldn't order insulin P.O.....Last nite, l had an sleepy attending order d5&1/2 w/40 of K on a diabetic whose K+ was 4.5....(the rate was to be "2am"),give the wrong admitting dx...well l could go on, but l won't, l am sure you get the picture....l guess l am not sure exactly what you are saying about the nursing profession....is it the cirriculum or the or the profession that you tolerate?.......l am considering some different career paths after spending almost 23 years in this profession, so l appreciate perspectives from different forums....thanks........LR

Espresso girl! · Dec 3, 2002

Okay, the statement "what did you think nursing was about" drove instant fury.

The point it seems is not what we thought it was about but the fact that what it truly is about doesn't cut it in the real world. This, is indeed our complaint. REALISM is what we're after. Passivism is for the folks who wish to remain complacent and continue to bend over, for here it comes.

I am finishing an accelerated BSN, and you'd be amazed at the skill set we're equipped with. Yes, I can sure give a thorough bed bath and help clear the dinner trays. But do you think we ever spent more than 15 minutes on how to read labs, or what a medical chart looks like and how to most proficiently use it to glean information on our patient? Of course not. So back to my original point. Perhaps the fact that we are so dissatified could be channeled into some impetus for change. We are not a bunch of nimble-minded flies anxious to carry a rose down the graduation walkway listening to "the wind beneath my wings". (Please now visualize me sticking my finger down my throat.) Simply sitting back and saying "yeah, I guess this is just what nursing is" will not get us anywhere. This attitude is perhaps why nurses have never been able to organize into any large, cohesive group that can challenge political action toward fair conditions, and better pay, despite the fact they make up the largest group of healthcare workers in the world. Why let someone continue to stomp all over you, beginning with the school? My spirit is with Jimmy Hoffa.

MICU RN · Dec 4, 2002

I. rae:

Espresso girl expressed herself quite well and I agree with most of her points. those are some of the reasons I feel like I do about our profession. However she missed a few more good points, such as being expected to be the clerk, housekeeper, waiter and nurses aid on top of providing critical care and trying to keep people alive. Nursing is the only college trained profession that puts up with this nonsense. Not to mention the lack of autonomy although we get tons of accountability and responsibility. For all the training we receive we really have hardly any true autonomy. Now the hospitals will blow smoke up our butts all day and encourage us to get every certification under the sun, but don't want to pay you for it. I know, I have a bunch of them.Those are some of the things I don't like about nursing , but ultimately it comes down to I just prefer a more logical and scientific type profession. As I mentioned in my last post on this thread, I have the utmost respect for good nurses and work with many. However, the more I do bedside nursing the more I realize it is not for me and that why I have been working towards getting away from the bedside since day one. I certainlly don't mean to offend anyone who truly enjoys nursing, more power to them and I hope that one day the profession gets the respect and compensation it deserves. I just am not willing to wait around for that day to come.

l.rae · Dec 4, 2002

Anthony, if l were younger, l wouldn't wait around either....good luck to you....LR