Advice on schooling.....

I'm a ICU nurse with 6 years experience and who is heading off to anesthesia school in August. So my info is preety current. In general you will need a bachelors in science nursing degree to be a nurse anest. Get it- NURSE anesthesia. Just joking sort of. Anyway, most 4 year nursing schools have a 1 year "accelerated or transitional" program for those with a BS in something that want a BSN. Go for the BSN as that is what most anesthesia schools require. Also, most require at least a year of critical care nursing as a prerequesitite. That said there are a few schools that will take those with a BS in something like biology and train you to be a nurse at the same time. I don't know exactly how that works but it does exist in theory. Personally, I would want some ICU experience, I don't know how you are going to handle complex tasks such as titrating vasoactive drips, transfusing blood, floating PA caths or merely managing your patient in a holistic way if you never have been a nurse. There is a mind set that goes along with being a nurse. Nursing is part of who we are, we take a bit of patient advocacy home so to speak. I think the act of being responsible for others' lives is a valuable lesson to be learned before attempting nures anesthesia. This is just my opinion it is not expert in any sense of the word. Good luck and feel free to e-mail me directly for more information.