Do crnas deserve that much salary?

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Don't take me wrong, in Houston, Texas CRNAs stock their rooms, prepare the meds, MDAs see the patients sometimes. CRNAs are told by MDAs that they don't have to see the patient, so you bring the patient to their room. CRNAs hand the drugs to MDAs, they push the drugs, MDAs let them intubate and then leave. CRNAs manage take vitals do the paperwork MDAs come for emergencies, if there is something wrong MDAs take over. Any nurse can do what CRNAs do with the exception of intubation that can be learned by a nurse. My questions do CRNAs have to go to school for 3 years and get a masters degree for this? Do they deserve 220k salary when they don't do anything autonomously? I see a flawed system any thoughts??!!!!

Specializes in ICU + Infection Prevention.

OP has progressed from ignorance to willful ignorance in the face of enlightening information.

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The fact that the OP doesn't even know the income of a CRNA points to they don't know what they are talking about and is possibly trying to stir trouble. I'd move on.

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Every CRNA should be competent to work independently from day 1 after graduation or they shouldn't be a CRNA IMHO. That is how I was trained and that is how I train all my students.

Could not agree more, and I don't doubt your students are trained well... but we both know that varies across the country.

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Specializes in Peri-Op.

I agree, probably some AA or MDA with an axe to grind.

FWIW - AA are totally different than a CRNA and are more along the lines of this persons description......

The OP is obviously an internet troll, I could see that before I read any other comments on the thread. No BSN educated nurse would form a paragraph like that with such poor sentence structure and grammar. Not to mention that no BSN educated nurse would say such a ridiculous and uninformed statement about CRNA's, especially when they claim to work the OR. Usually OR nurses are the first to tell me how impressive the CRNA's are and even desire to get into the ICU to have a hope of attending CRNA school themselves one day. Even if they don't aspire to do anesthesia one day any nurse I've ever spoken to about it greatly respects and admires CRNA's.

Word to the wise, don't get inflamed by fake internet trolls who enjoy causing drama on internet forums. I've noticed a few showing up in the advanced practice threads in the last year saying obviously inflammatory and ill-informed things that are derogatory to nurses and the APRN field. They aren't even sharing a valid or defensible opinion with any evidenced research to back it up, so there's no way to debate logic to them.

Don't feed the internet trolls and eventually they will die.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, NICU.

Yeah. Let's pay people less who, with one slight error, could easily kill a patient. :banghead:

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I agree, probably some AA or MDA with an axe to grind.

FWIW - AA are totally different than a CRNA and are more along the lines of this persons description......

You know as much about AA's as Jasy appears to know about CRNA's, which is ​nothing.

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Many work autonomously. Usually in moderate sedation. Some states they must be with an MD for general anesthesia only! The program is VERY INTENSE . I beg to differ that an RN could do their job! I am an RN no I wouldn't be comfortable or qualified to administer versed, febtanyl and titrate propofol etc .... They have a HUGE LIABILITY and carry very costly insurance! They are essentially STOPPING life and bringing it back.

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Specializes in Float Pool - A Little Bit of Everything.

I personally applaud CRNAs for what they do and the advanced training they receive. I hope that 220k helps them pay off the 150k in student loans they have. Not to mention , continuing ed, etc. If we could all safely do their job, hospitals would surely have figured that out a long time ago and made it a sign off with a preceptor on our orientation sheets, saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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Specializes in Pedi.
Don't take me wrong, in Houston Texas crnas stock their rooms, prepare the meds, mdas see the patients sometimes crnas are told by mdas they don't have to see the patient, so you bring the patient to room, crnas hand the drugs to mdas they push the drugs, mdas let them intubate and then leave crnas manage take vitals do the paperwork mdas come for emergence if there is something wrong mdas take over, my question is any nurse can do what crnas do with the exception of intubation that can be learned by a nurse, my questions do crnas have t go to school for 3 years masters degree for this? And deserve 220k salary when they don't do anything autonomously? I see a flawed system any thoughts??!!!!

My thought is that you don't have any idea what you're talking about.

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The terms "deserve X salary" make no sense. Salaries are paid by what the market dictates. If a hospital had a supremely difficult time recruiting janitors, and sh*t was piled 5 feet high in the floors, they would damn well be paying them huge bucks.

If they had 500 CRNA applicants for one spot, they would probably make a lot less. Fortunately for us there seems to be a more often negative correlation between number of potential applicants and length/difficulty of training programs, so usually people on the long/hard end make more than others.

CRNA programs and MD programs are probably the hardest medical-stuff to go through, so they make the most.

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you don't need rigorous education to do that job, because crnas don't do anything without anesthesiologists, guess you didn't read my post or you didn't understand it

Nurse Anesthetists do indeed work independently, such as when there is no Anesthesiologist in the OR.

Of course they deserve every cent they earn. They hold lives in their hands. They assess patients, plan their gases and pharmacology that they will use, they administer the planned and/or re-planned agents, they monitor throughout the procedure for VS, O2, any instability or problem, and they treat same. Perhaps where you work there is a doctor always in the OR, but it didn't sound like it from your post. But I never saw a doctor present in the OR to oversee the CRNA. The nurse was completely independent and was responsible for that pt. There were Anesthesiologists in other nearby OR's who could be called upon for immediate consultation if the CRNA needed to consult. Or they could give each other breaks if needed. But it was always CRNA's who ran to the ER when an emergency intubation was needed. I never saw a doc do these in ER.

Yes, a lot of nurses hold lives in their hands. It is only because most nurses have not organized/unionized/banded together to fight for themselves that they don't get paid what they're really worth and that they work under very rough conditions, such as no breaks and too many patients.

IF you want to earn what CRNA's earn, go to school. But don't let your jealousy (if that's what it is) or your wrong impression cause you to put down nurse anesthetists.

As I learned in a sales area in which I used to work, the right price is whatever the market will bear.

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