Becoming a CRNA

Not sure when all CRNA training programs will be DNP...think it's 2025. That said, until then, no reason to limit yourself to those program which award a DNP. They're longer and therefore more expensive too. Also, there is no guarantee that the anesthesia program that you are accepted to will give any credit at all for your prior graduate degree other than you having the chops for graduate level work.

Just get into anesthesia program you can get into (accredited, of course, without regard to MS or DNP) and don't complicate things in the meantime.

I will say that you will have to have to be one hot shot of a candidate to be accepted into a mid to upper tier program with 2 years of nursing experience. And save a ton of money. You'll need the practice feeling poor.

FNP program a waste of time and money if you want to be a CRNA. Keep working and save your money. If you can enter the program with all the money you will need, you will be better off financially. Working is impossible while in clinicals. If there are some courses for the DNP that are transferrable among programs that you would to apply for, you could get them out of the way. Clinicals are full time at least:) But congrats on getting into neuro ICU...great experience.

Keep in mind that a lot of loans will let you defer payments if you re-enroll in school. While CRNAs are all going to be doctoral-trained by 2025, any program starting 2023 or later has to meet this requirement, since the 2025 deadline refers to graduates. Finally, while it may seem easier to go the MSN route first and finish the DNP later, if your end goal is DNP, then enrolling in a DNP program from the beginning is the faster and cheaper route. Completion programs are fairly expensive, and tend to last just over a year. The difference between DNP and MSN is only 9 months at most schools. I hope this helps!

Take the 2 years you would be in the MS program and work/save as much as possible for a CRNA program if that’s your goal. No reason you can’t start a DN(A)P with 100k in savings. If you can put your undergraduate loans in deferment during grad school make minimum payments and concentrate on building savings. Grad loans begin charging interest immediately so delaying loans for a year will save a lot of interest. Plan to live cheap during and after school for a few years. People are paying off 6 figure loans in 2-3 years.

On 2/21/2019 at 4:41 PM, vegaa7500 said:

Hi,

So I recently graduated nursing school and just started a new job as a Neuro ICU RN. My end goal for my career is to become a CRNA. I was planning on applying to DNP programs after 2 years of experience. I heard it would be near impossible to work while in this type of program so i'm worrying about being able to afford my cost of living, while paying my student loans off for 3 years. I had the idea today of possibly going through my hospitals school to obtain an MSN for FNP, which would take 2 years. With this my hospital would pay for me to get my degree, while still being able to work and build up my state pension. But I'd have to work there for a certain number of years after. After completing the required time I could jump into a MSN to DNP school, which should be about a year. Do you think I should go straight to DNP school or get an MSN degree for FNP and then get my DNP? What are your thoughts on this?

FNP and CRNA are two completely different paths, although if you do FNP first I think that doing CRNA will be easier to go through because it seems that they have similar core classes but I don't believe that the anatomy and physiology, pharmacology, and assessments classes would transfer into the CRNA program from your FNP program. I say this because a lot of the CRNA beginning courses are like "anatomy and physiology for anesthesia" or "pharmacology for anesthesia". I guess they teach the context in terms of anesthesia. However there are schools I believe who use the same core courses for both paths. Columbia University might be one of these schools so technically if you get your NP from there, you might not have to retake A&P, pharmacology, and health assessments for the CRNA paths. I'm not 100% sure on this, you might have to do your research. I can somewhat say that if you have your NP degree, I feel that that would make your resume look extra good for CRNA school. However, if you want to go through CRNA school, there is no such thing as going through it for just one year. You'd have to quit your full time job, maybe go per diem, and go to CRNA school full time for AT LEAST 24 months (if you're lucky enough to get into the short ones) but the average length for a master's is 27/28 months, and DNP is 3 years. Good Luck! PM if me you have any more questions. I've worked so hard to get accepted into school - applied to 5 total - waitlisted at 2, accepted to 1, got an interview pending. I can definitely give advice on your path ?