Any CRNA graduate/students out there

Editorial Team / Admin · Mar 6, 2008

Hello,

I moved your thread to the Pre-CRNA forum where you will receive better responses.

NMB IVP · Mar 8, 2008

hi everyone...
im a New RN (from California) and am thinking of getting my CRNA license in near future. Are there any CRNA graduate/ students out there who would like to share their experience/ideas/comments/thoughts? would kindly appreciate any feedback. thank you

I am 23 years old. I just started CRNA school at Samford University. There is a ton of advice that I could give you, but there is not enough time or space. As a new RN, you need to be focused on doing the little things first. Always keep your goals in mind. If you are going to be a CRNA one day, decide that now and just leave it at that. Spend time with CRNAs and decide if that is what you really want to do. If a CRNA is what you want to be, let that be your goal. If you don't want it bad enough, you will not achieve that goal. Alot of work goes into just getting admitted to a school. Once you get in, your life is dedicated to that for a little over 2 years. Family means alot to me. However, now I don't get to see my family much except for my wife (we don't have any kids) because all of my time away from class is spent reading books or notes. It's not as bad as it sounds. Studying in CRNA school is not like studying in nursing school. You do put in long hours, but you are not learning the techniques of cleaning a bedpan!! LOL. You are learning really fun and interesting stuff. I say all of that to make my first point - Set your goals now.

Next, you need to work in a high acuity ICU w/ some sick patients. Cardiovascular experience is the most preferred by schools in my opinion. Don't try to learn everything at once, because you can't. Take it one day at a time and learn as you go. A day will come (maybe a year later) that you will actually be able to put things together. At that point, you will begin to soak up everything like a sponge.

I guess my last piece of advice is to take the GRE and score well over 1000. Keep your GPA up. Take some graduate level courses like stats, research, and physiology. Hope this helps.