I've been thinking of ways in which CRNA's might "gain more respect" from the mainstream medical community (MDA's in particular). The parallel which occured to me was of all things home schooled students. You see initially years ago public school educators loudly decried the inadequacy of home school education (they still do but with considerably less credibility). One thing which has helped to change the "perception" of home schooling are the consistently high performance of home schooled students on such things as spelling bees, geography competitions, and SAT/ACT scores. It has now reached the point that many Ivy league institutions actively recruit home schooled students.
So I asked myself how might CRNA's go about demonstrating a similar competency? ONE way could be the creation of "games" which test in a competitive environment the contestents ability with regard to ALL aspects of anesthesia. There would be both "practical" and written components to my dream games measuring competencies from patient accessment to life saving trauma management from an anesthesia perspective. The games would be open to ALL anesthesia professionals both CRNA's and MDA's. There would be very substancial cash prizes (say 100K for first prize) but the main reward would be professional pride. Funding could be facilitated via spocers such as Discovery Health (it would make a decent show on that channel) and fees from contestents (which might be paid by employers seeking positive publicity in many cases).
Firefighters, policemen, mechanics, and even barbecue aficionados have such competition, why not anesthesia professionals? If MDA's want to claim such profoundly superior skills and allege that entrusting CRNA's with anesthesia responsibility places patients lives in danger (as they are in some political races across the nation), let them put their skills where their mouths are. Maybe they will be proven correct, but I predict that CRNA's would more than hold their own in such competition.
