CRNA Jobs for Adrenaline Junkies

skipaway · Mar 16, 2006

Hello Everyone,
I would like to know what types of job opportunities there are for a CRNA who is interested in fast-paced/adrenaline healthcare. Trauma Code Flight Nurses?
Im finishing my ADN and Im interested in the CRNA specialty.

Military? You can go to Iraq/Afganistan and have all the excitement you want. P.S. Thanks to the CRNAs who do go and take care of our soldiers :)

yoga crna · Mar 17, 2006

Sorry, but anesthesia may not be the best field for you. It can be very boring when things are going well and you always want them to go well. There is very little room in the operating room for more than one superego and that usually is the surgeon. Futhermore, those in anesthesia who are always creating drama or are hyper are not doing the best for their patients or the profession. Consider something else, or follow a nurse anesthetist for about a week in a "bread and butter" practice, before you make a decision on anesthesia and take a position away from someone who is cool, confident and relaxed.

ezra19742002 · Mar 17, 2006

and take a position away from someone who is cool, confident and relaxed.

I think you have the ego problem.

But thanks for your insight into the profession

no-pain · Mar 17, 2006

ezra19742002,

Yoga is just giving you an answer to what you asked. Its probably not what you wanted to hear which is why you made the snide comment but he is absolutly right. All it was was constuctive criticism. It sounds like you should start out in an ICU or busy ED rather than focus on the CRNA thing for now. That type of attitude wont get you very far in life in any setting. :nono:

rayman · Mar 17, 2006

Yoga and the others speak the truth and you should probably slow down there a little cowboy...yoga is one of the most respected members of the board and he has lent invaluable advice to hundred's of us. You should probably focus on finishing your ADN and passing boards right now. You still have a pretty good learning curve ahead of you. Those who do well learn to control that adrenaline.

ezra19742002 · Mar 17, 2006

apaisRN, RN, CRNA · Mar 18, 2006

Anesthesia can produce plenty of adrenaline, in between spells of quiet. If you want a steady diet of it, go for ED, flight nurse or trauma ICU.

yoga crna · Mar 18, 2006

Thanks for the accolades. It has always been my goal to encourage students and younger CRNAs and not to eat our young, as is all too common in nursing.

Getting back to the question. I posed it yesterday at the end of a long, boring (thank God) case to some of the people in our operating room. The OR tech with over 20 years experience, said for you to consider sky-diving if you want an adrenalin rush. The circulating nurse, who started OR nursing in a MASH unit during the Viet-Nam war, said she wanted a dull. boring OR because when everyone is relaxed, the patient does better. Our night nurse, works nights in a very busy ICU, when she is not with us--her comment--"we have more Code Browns than Code Blue".

By the way, I don't have an ego problem, but I do have a very fine-tuned sense of reality and professionalism. I have devoted much of my life to anesthesia, without apology.

Yoga CRNA

apaisRN, RN, CRNA · Mar 18, 2006

Ah come on, a Code Brown is exciting! :yeah:

ezra19742002 · Mar 21, 2006

Grazi YogaCRNA for the information and to all others who helped. Enjoy your week saving lives. :saint:

Ezra

DebbieSue · Mar 21, 2006

You guy's humor is pathetically twisted and I love it.....

I'm kind of an adrenaline junkie, too, but it's one thing for me to say it and something different for someone who is clueless and not even done with the basic nursing program.

Many if not most successful critical care nurses do well under pressure. Why in tarnation would one WANT to work in such an environment if not for that?? In fact, whenever I was in positions to interview prospective new hires to CT ICU, my most important question was this: do you like adrenaline rushes? If the answer was yes, I hired them. They would be motivated and quick to learn. If they had no clue what I was talking about, I figured the answer was prob. no and that it would be a long, hard, slow learning curve. Being an adrenaline junkie does not mean that you WANT to be involved in a crisis all the time; it means that, if the crisis does happen, you are able to deal with it. In critical care, the very environment and acuity of the patients involves hovering slightly on the edge and priding yourself in your ability to keep the patient from falling over the edge. High acuity critical care and, I think, anesthesia have the inherent characteristic that things can go to hell in a handbasket in a minute and you better be able to deal with it. That being said, unremitting chaos and carnage and death and destruction, like during wartime in a warzone, is a completely different animal. In that case, the handbasket's already landed, and you are pulling young lives from over the edge all the time. I think the motivator in that case is saving young lives and any adrenaline rush is absolutely meaningless except in that it helps you keep going yet another day, attack, ambush, or whatever. I was glad when that urology doc made the cover of Newsweek.

I think it is kind of strange for a not-yet-nurse to be lusting after adrenaline rushes in anesthesia, but what about people like me? What kind of cases keep the CRNA REALLY on his/her toes? I know, I know, anesthesia always keeps you on your toes, that comes with the territory. But what cases are never routine? Liver transplant, dissecting and leaking TAA, big trauma, what??? I am almost 50, I am extremely calm, cool, and collected, I love having stable patients, I love keeping them stable, I love making them stable, but I HATE code browns.

Please don't reprimand me....I am asking from the outside looking in. Is every case in anesthesia enough to give one that little zing? Are there some kinds of cases that give one a bit more of that little zing? (Come ON people, work with me on this....don't you know I'm trying to procure my drug of choice??!!??)

I KNOW there are seasoned, mature practitioners of anesthesia out there who know what I mean.