CRNA Vs. MD

[Amir]

Hello everyone, just found this site so this is my first post.

Currently I am an undergrad working on acceptance to medical school. I'm not going to lie though, a majority of the motivation is the money. I just discovered CRNA's though and they make a lot of money with little debt doing roughly the same thing I wanted to do in the first place. I have a few questions I hope someone can help me out with here:

1) On a day-to-day basis, what would a CRNA end up doing? This can be broad, I just want to get an idea of if it's just put patients to sleep and wake them up or more.

2) How long would it take me to get a CRNA. Currently I am a sophomore in Psychology (finished all physics, bio, chem, math).

Thanks!

[foreverLaur]

I think you are a little mistaken about the time frame. It is a lot faster to become a CRNA as opposed to an MDA.

Anesthesiologist: 4 years medical school, 4 years of residency. 8 years to become a MD.

CRNA: 2 years BSN, 3 years getting required experience, 2.5 years school. 7.5 years to become a CRNA.

I'm not seeing much of a difference here? And the CRNA plan is assuming you can actually get 1 year full-time ICU experience that quickly out of school. On top of that, some schools require CCRN which takes longer. Since the OP has already been gearing the undergrad towards med school, I'd vote that med school is faster at this point in time.

[sewnew]

5) It takes a minimum of 7yrs to become a CRNA. Depending on the prereqs. you have finished already you could deduct that from the total, but in general it takes most people 10+yrs to become a CRNA. CRNA school ranges from 24-36mo with more schools slowly converting to the DNP/DNAP (which isn't a requirement for CRNAs until 2025 unlike other APNs which is 2015, but some NA schools are making the change already anyways) so you can expect most schools to start being around 3yrs in the near future. http://www.aana.com/abouttheprofession.aspx

Just curious where you got the 2025 statistic from. I could not find verification of this fact on the AANA website. Would love to see a link if you have one.

From what I have heard, there is no "deadline" for schools to switch over to the DNAP. It's more like a common trend that will occur in the near future. But I could be totally wrong...

[RNYC]

Well, don't be mislead by those saying it is not about money...it is ALL about money. CRNAs make far more than any other group in nursing and more than many physicians. Their educational requirements are minimal....currently 6-6.5 years of training, and with an average salary of $185,000 per year, that comes out to around 30,000K per year of training. Anesthesiologists train for 12 years and have virtually the same income per year of training.

CRNAs have a very cushy lifestyle working an average of a little less than 40 hours a week (since most are employees, employers frequently don't enjoy paying an extremely high paid nurse time and a half for overtime). Therefore, the average CRNA makes around $92 an hour in salary alone, and then add on the benefits, and it puts them way over this amount. There are many times between cases when there are long turnover times, holes in the operating schedule due to improper scheduling or inefficiencies or cancellation of cases, etc, when CRNAs will frequently go out for smoking breaks or sit in the physician's lounge reading newspapers or hobnobbing in the cafeteria with the medical staff. Many hospitals have significant down time in the OR which frequently translates into free time (= not working time) for CRNAs. It is a life of luxury and bliss compared with most nurses who are slogging it out on the wards or having to listen to patients complain endlessly. CRNAs simply knock their lights out and voila! No more complaints! To quote a CRNA from another forum:

stanman1968

04-13-2008, 06:09 AM

"Do not get so worked up guys, we all know the salary is one thing that drew us. It is not what keeps year after year. It is no different in any profession, medicine sports business. Do not get upset, the lure of good pay way will interest the most motivated and education will winnow out those cannot do it."

CRNAs should be proud to make more than 97% of the American population working only 40 hours a week! It is a dream job everyone would aspire to. As much as CRNAs complain about their jobs sometimes, it ain't flippin' burgers, and they live in the privilege of wealth and power that few in our society achieve.

It will be a doctorate at some point in the next 15 yrs...so the clock is tickin : )

[wtbcrna, MSN, DNP, CRNA]

Well, don't be mislead by those saying it is not about money...it is ALL about money. CRNAs make far more than any other group in nursing and more than many physicians. Their educational requirements are minimal....currently 6-6.5 years of training, and with an average salary of $185,000 per year, that comes out to around 30,000K per year of training. Anesthesiologists train for 12 years and have virtually the same income per year of training.

CRNAs have a very cushy lifestyle working an average of a little less than 40 hours a week (since most are employees, employers frequently don't enjoy paying an extremely high paid nurse time and a half for overtime). Therefore, the average CRNA makes around $92 an hour in salary alone, and then add on the benefits, and it puts them way over this amount. There are many times between cases when there are long turnover times, holes in the operating schedule due to improper scheduling or inefficiencies or cancellation of cases, etc, when CRNAs will frequently go out for smoking breaks or sit in the physician's lounge reading newspapers or hobnobbing in the cafeteria with the medical staff. Many hospitals have significant down time in the OR which frequently translates into free time (= not working time) for CRNAs. It is a life of luxury and bliss compared with most nurses who are slogging it out on the wards or having to listen to patients complain endlessly. CRNAs simply knock their lights out and voila! No more complaints! To quote a CRNA from another forum:

stanman1968

04-13-2008, 06:09 AM

"Do not get so worked up guys, we all know the salary is one thing that drew us. It is not what keeps year after year. It is no different in any profession, medicine sports business. Do not get upset, the lure of good pay way will interest the most motivated and education will winnow out those cannot do it."

CRNAs should be proud to make more than 97% of the American population working only 40 hours a week! It is a dream job everyone would aspire to. As much as CRNAs complain about their jobs sometimes, it ain't flippin' burgers, and they live in the privilege of wealth and power that few in our society achieve.

Almost no CRNA that I know of makes the average salary of 185K a year. That is supposed to be the base salary for CRNAs, but I think that quote is actually salary plus benefits (which is still really good). Most new grad CRNAs can expect to make about 120K starting out. It takes a bare minimum of 7yrs to become a CRNA. Four years for your BSN, one year minimum acute care experience, and if you goto the shortest NA school which is 24months. That equals a bare minimum of 7yrs not 6-6.5yrs, but most CRNAs have at least 3-5yrs acute care experience before going NA school so the average time to become a CRNA is more around 10yrs total. Not everyone becomes a CRNA for the money, but with any advanced degree/responsibility people do expect to get compensated. I for one and every other new grad CRNA in the AF end up making less than if we would have stayed in ICU at least until are 4.5yr payback is done. The big difference with us is that we didn't have to pay for our school, but then again most CRNAs don't have to deploy to war zones either.

I realize paindoc where you have worked "supervising" things may have been as you have described, but most CRNAs don't work less than 40hrs a week and rarely have much down time between cases. The average work week for a CRNA would be more around 50hrs a week depending on where you work, and a lot of CRNAs don't get overtime either. Crap next month alone I have 12 days of call (which luckily for most civilian CRNAs it won't be that way unless you choose to work at a small rural facility) so your whole generalization of CRNAs is full of misnomers and half-truths.

What normally happens in most places is the MDA sits in the office playing on the computer surfing the net, drinking coffee, and generally goofing off while the CRNAs stay in the room doing all the cases with MDA coming around (maybe) every so often to sign off the chart. I have rarely seen an MDA take a room. I am not even sure how an MDA keeps up their skills after anesthesia residency when they rarely if ever do any cases themselves. It certainly isn't by helping CRNAs at most places.

MDA's do basically get 12yrs of education, but almost none of it translates to anesthesia. The truth is that the anesthesiology residents know next to nothing when they get to anesthesia training, and all that extra years of training has very little effect on their anesthesiology training. Anesthesiology residency is actually 3yrs not the 4yrs that most MDAs would like you to think it is. Pretty much everyone would agree that some internship in family practice, ENT ect. for a year being some staffs/senior residents gopher/H&P boy/girl would hardly qualify as helpful in anesthesia training.

I am sure that you are doing pain management for the love of helping chronic pain patients. It couldn't be because interventional pain management can be much more lucrative for an MDA than being a regular staff MDA.?

Then again I guess most CRNAs that would choose to work with someone that regarded them as nothing more than overpaid technicians would have to be in it for the money to stay working there. I will take my lower pay and independence, and work where my services are valued rather than put up with this MDA nonsense that you would have everyone believe is common in the anesthesia workplace.

[wtbcrna, MSN, DNP, CRNA]

Just curious where you got the 2025 statistic from. I could not find verification of this fact on the AANA website. Would love to see a link if you have one.

From what I have heard, there is no "deadline" for schools to switch over to the DNAP. It's more like a common trend that will occur in the near future. But I could be totally wrong...

http://www.aana.com/SearchResults.aspx See the DNP/DNAP pdf.

[paindoc]

The $185,000 figure is from the national press posted one week ago. Looking at the stats from several salary search sites including salary.com, one finds salary and benefits for the 50th percentile to be frequently over $200,000 in many locations. Salary plus time off is indeed $185,000. Perhaps you simply know the wrong CRNAs or need a more higher paid technicians job. I would suggest gaswork.com where there are 14 jobs in the first 3 pages alone paying over $200,000 with one paying $260,000 with call every 4th week only.

CRNAs and MDAs are grossly overtrained and overpaid for what they do, so enjoy the gravy while you can....the end is coming. Soon.

[wtbcrna, MSN, DNP, CRNA]

The $185,000 figure is from the national press posted one week ago. Looking at the stats from several salary search sites including salary.com, one finds salary and benefits for the 50th percentile to be frequently over $200,000 in many locations. Salary plus time off is indeed $185,000. Perhaps you simply know the wrong CRNAs or need a more higher paid technicians job. I would suggest gaswork.com where there are 14 jobs in the first 3 pages alone paying over $200,000 with one paying $260,000 with call every 4th week only.

CRNAs and MDAs are grossly overtrained and overpaid for what they do, so enjoy the gravy while you can....the end is coming. Soon.

The median salary reported on salary.com is still right around 150K. http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layoutscripts/swzl_salaryresults.asp?op=salswz%5Fpsr&jobfamilycode=12&txtKeyword=Nurse+anesthetist&hdOmniNarrowDesc=Healthcare+%2D%2D+Nursing&hdZipCode=Enter&hdOmniTotalJobsFound=64&pagefrom=selectjob&hdJobCategory=HC05&hdGeoLocation=U%2ES%2E+National+Averages&countertype=0&totaljoblistnum=2&joblevelcode=2&hdCurrentPage=1&hdNarrowDesc=Healthcare+%2D%2D+Nursing&hdLocationOption=0&hdViewAllRecords=0&hdJobTitle=Certified+Nurse+Anesthetist&hdSearchByOption=0&hdKeyword=Nurse+anesthetist&rdbSearchByOption=0&hdStateMetro=&jobcounter=1&hdSortBy=0&hdJobCode=HC07000007&hdJSBoolDisplayAdvertisement=&hdAjaxKeyword=Nurse+anesthetist&hdAjaxKeywordWithOR=%23Nurse%23+OR+%23anesthetist%23&hdAjaxDisplaySection1=1&hdAjaxDisplaySection2=1 Only about the 1st 150 jobs out 700+ on gaswork.com report a salary in the 180+ range, so unless you are doing some weird kinda of math that doesn't quite equal out to a median salary of 185K a yr.

You have spouting the end is coming to anesthesia providers salaries for a long time on here, but as of yet no one has seen the proof yet. I guess if you state it long enough when salaries do start to level off or decline slightly you can finally say you were right.

Now the question is why do you keep posting on here? You provide absolutely no useful information and only seek to argue and antagonize.

"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[2]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)

[paindoc]

It is useful to engage in self examination in order to produce cogent thought about one's life profession especially when there are those that have become so insouciant that they have developed their own self consistent set of ideas that are quite divergent from other professionals. Since most CRNAs are mere employees of others, the benefits they receive include salary and time off, which are hours that have to be worked in your stead while you bask on the beaches of your Florida second house or are on one of your IPG cruises. So with the whole package of salary and benefits, you are still in the 97th percentile of the population. Isn't that great! Isn't that something patients should understand about CRNAs, that a nurse would come with a pricetag each year that dwarfs what the patient's will earn over 5-10 years? Yes, CRNAs are overpaid. No, I have not been crying about the sky falling for a long period of time- fact is CRNAs make more than ALL other nurses, most lawyers, most primary care physicians, most PhDs who may work 60 hours a week to your 40, and have just as much responsibility. The sad fact is anesthetiizing and awakening a patient with no significant deviations in homeostasis could be done 99% of the time by a person with 6 months training out of high school. We need a less expensive alternative than CRNAs (and MDAs) considering the built in safety factors that come with modern monitoring and the relative paucity of significant homeostasis imbalance induced by modern medications.

The "experience" one needs for CRNA school is not educational training: it is a job requirement just as those going into medical school have some experience in the medical field on their resume before applying. Just as many lawyers have done some work in the legal or paralegal field before being accepted to law school. To count a job requirement as educational training is a farce and is disingenuous.

[wtbcrna, MSN, DNP, CRNA]

It is useful to engage in self examination in order to produce cogent thought about one's life profession especially when there are those that have become so insouciant that they have developed their own self consistent set of ideas that are quite divergent from other professionals. Since most CRNAs are mere employees of others, the benefits they receive include salary and time off, which are hours that have to be worked in your stead while you bask on the beaches of your Florida second house or are on one of your IPG cruises. So with the whole package of salary and benefits, you are still in the 97th percentile of the population. Isn't that great! Isn't that something patients should understand about CRNAs, that a nurse would come with a pricetag each year that dwarfs what the patient's will earn over 5-10 years? Yes, CRNAs are overpaid. No, I have not been crying about the sky falling for a long period of time- fact is CRNAs make more than ALL other nurses, most lawyers, most primary care physicians, most PhDs who may work 60 hours a week to your 40, and have just as much responsibility. The sad fact is anesthetiizing and awakening a patient with no significant deviations in homeostasis could be done 99% of the time by a person with 6 months training out of high school. We need a less expensive alternative than CRNAs (and MDAs) considering the built in safety factors that come with modern monitoring and the relative paucity of significant homeostasis imbalance induced by modern medications.

The "experience" one needs for CRNA school is not educational training: it is a job requirement just as those going into medical school have some experience in the medical field on their resume before applying. Just as many lawyers have done some work in the legal or paralegal field before being accepted to law school. To count a job requirement as educational training is a farce and is disingenuous.

Yes, I totally agree that you are a troll too. I am glad we can agree on something.

[angeleyes8501]

You know maybe i'm a little confused but I'm not a CRNA yet i do plan on going to pursue this field, but I dont understand how people can say CRNA's are overpaid....... These individuals literally hold other individuals lives in there hands.... especially when the physician is no where to be found ie what happened when my brother was born. Anesthesiologist was somewhere else and so was the labor doctor so a CRNA and a RN brought him into this world. ...... to be honest 400-500,000 a year is a little over paid for doctors who sometimes come in an just a sign a paper and the rn or crna has done everything.

[foreverLaur]

You know maybe i'm a little confused but I'm not a CRNA yet i do plan on going to pursue this field, but I dont understand how people can say CRNA's are overpaid....... These individuals literally hold other individuals lives in there hands.... especially when the physician is no where to be found ie what happened when my brother was born. Anesthesiologist was somewhere else and so was the labor doctor so a CRNA and a RN brought him into this world. ...... to be honest 400-500,000 a year is a little over paid for doctors who sometimes come in an just a sign a paper and the rn or crna has done everything.

What type of doctor makes $400k to $500k a year to sign a paper here and there and just makes the nurses do everything?!

[oncall24/7]

I became a CRNA then took the unusual path to med school and became an anesthesiologist. There is no comparison between the 2 programs; both are intense and require a lot of work and if you are trying to complete either primarily for financial reasons, don't. If you want to work in anesthesia with the minimum investment in time and cost, go the CRNA route. You can get a fair amount of "bang for your buck" as a CRNA. I did it for a while and liked it, but after med school I realized that there was a lot that I did not know and my CRNA training was not as adequate as I would have liked. At some institutions, the nurses (CRNA's) and the physicians (MDA's) seem to get along; I was a great CRNA but was treated as a "worker" not a collegue by the MDA's. And after med school, I understand that medical doctors will almost never give a non-physician much respect; lip-service perhaps, but that's it. Now with healthcare reform and opt-in/opt out, the fur is really going to start to fly as the MDA's fight to keep their turf (or as they say, to protect the patient). Personally, I was proud to be a CRNA and I'm proud to be an MDA. My husband makes plenty so money isn't an issue for us; neither was the many years that I spent persuing my medical degree being paid at low wages. One observation: as many CRNA's become "militant" and insist that they can practice independently, I believe that they will be given the right to do so (at least for a while, in every state). In the furture, patients will be totally informed who is doing their anesthesia (MDA or nurse) and I believe that the veil of "supervision" will essentially vanish. I joined an MDA-only practice and do not supervise CRNA's, even though I was once one. I do not trash CRNA's, but when a patient asks me who is the best qualified to perform his/her anesthesia, I have to be honest and say an MDA, 1:1 without supervising CRNA. In the short-term, I think that more and more institutions will staff with the the cheapest anesthesia providers that they can get, probably AA's or even someone less qualified. The problem with believing that you can provide the same anesthesia with 4 CRNA "supervised" by one MDA is that the CRNA can supposedly work independently. Then why have the MDA at all? 99% of anesthesia can be safely provided by a person with little formal training, so why pay a CRNA 1/3 to 1/2 of what a MDA makes if you can use even cheaper help? How about 4 semi-AA's supervised by a CRNA? The CRNA still has to work under the licence of a physician (surgeon), so this would be legal. All this to say, if you want to work in anesthesia, best of luck. I think that CRNA's and AA's (and a lot of us MDA's) are going to be taking HUGE pay cuts shortly, that is if we can find jobs. My neighbor is a BC/BS administrator who had surgery on both arms, identical surgery R&L. First case: CRNA only, billed for something like $400. Second case: CRNA and MDA, billed for almost double. Both cases went fine. She said that they pay the MDA and CRNA the same based on time and complexity. How long do you think that they will continue to pay double? And if you think that the CRNA's will displace the MDA, I doubt it. As soon as they figure out that you can get a doc for the price of a nurse, who do you think will be looking for a new job? No disrespect to CRNA's; I'm too old to fight this mess and will probably retire before the issue is settled. The future isn't rosy.