CRNA and the different fields.

[CardiacDork, MSN, RN]

Everyone talks about the variety found in nursing. Let's talk about some of the variety specifically found in the nurse anesthetist profession. Share as much as you'd like.

Where do you work? Do you do anesthesia for OR cases? Do you also do OB? or is that a specialty? Do you do anesthesia for the entire hospital as needed? Endoscopy/OB/OR?

Area? Example Endoscopy, OR, dentistry, etc.

Compensation/Location?

Overall happiness with position?

Perks/Benefits?

Downside/negatives?

If you could change one thing, what would it be?

Just curious, let's see how many responses we get.

Thanks in advance.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

OR nurse, not CRNA. How it works at my facility is that the CRNAs do not specialize. They work in all types of surgeries and procedures we provide- OB/GYN, uro, general, vascular, neuro, ortho, plastics, dental, ENT, endo, cath lab, EP lab. If it takes place in an OR or procedural area, they do it all. The only specialty they aren't involved in is cardiac. I'm not quite so sure that unless a CRNA chooses to work in a facility that only provides one type of surgical or procedural specialty the possibility to specialize is all that common.

[CardiacDork, MSN, RN]

OR nurse, not CRNA. How it works at my facility is that the CRNAs do not specialize. They work in all types of surgeries and procedures we provide- OB/GYN, uro, general, vascular, neuro, ortho, plastics, dental, ENT, endo, cath lab, EP lab. If it takes place in an OR or procedural area, they do it all. The only specialty they aren't involved in is cardiac. I'm not quite so sure that unless a CRNA chooses to work in a facility that only provides one type of surgical or procedural specialty the possibility to specialize is all that common.

Thanks. Figured this is how it worked but was just curious if some perhaps worked for outpatient or specialized clinics etc.

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

I am a nephrology APRN and our practice is very large - we own a free-standing (20 miles from a hospital) vascular access center where we do dialysis access procedures (MAC). For some procedures, we do use a CRNA to oversee anesthesia so this might be one way to specialize. However, this is not a full time position.

[wtbcrna, MSN, DNP, CRNA]

There are CRNAs that do only OB, GI, outpatient surgery centers, plastic surgery, pain, CV etc. It is more common to see CRNAs working in hospitals and doing a variety of cases including OB, but you can specialize. Pay varies widely and depends on variety of things.

[chemokine]

CRNAs can definitely specialize. I'm an SRNA now but at my current facility cardiac is a specialty meaning it is something optional that not all CRNAs choose to do. At another group, OB is a speciality. Another does only peds. You can definitely choose to work in say a GI center where you only do those cases if you want to. There are various setups.