Georgia Regents

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Does anyone know anything about Georgia regents CRNA program. I'm interested in the school. I tried the search engine and couldn't really find anything. I reached out to the school numerous times and never get a response. Just curious if anyone knew nothing (average student stats, clinical sites, instructors)

Thanks

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I'm very interested as well, I'm in the process of applying now.

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I applied for fall 2016, still waiting for them to send out the email about the supplemental application.. Haven't seen too much on this school either in other forums. Some insight would be great!

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Looks like a relatively new program - accredited in 2011 (states that on their webpage). I have never heard of it.

I would be EXTREMELY careful about applying to a program in Georgia. Emory created the AA program and Georgia is one of the least-friendly CRNA states due to that. I tried moving back to Atlanta a few years ago and it was impossible to find a decent (non-GI only) job.

I would ask to talk to current students - where do you do your heart/lung cases, how many do you do? Where do you train? Do they train AAs as well? Who are you competing against for difficult cases, placing invasive lines and doing blocks? How many cases do current student have? Where do graduate students work currently? Do students have a hard time finding jobs? Where do you do pediatrics? Do you have a trauma rotation?

It it would be a shame to spend all of that money and have a sub-par clinical experience. Especially with how tight the CRNA market is getting. Not having great regional anesthesia skills and not coming out feeling confident as an independent provider can really hurt your job prospects, especially since program reputation means so much in the job market.

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I am in my second year at GRU's nurse anesthesia program. The program is front loaded, meaning you are in class for the first year with occasional simulation time. The next year and a half you are rotating throughout the state doing your rotations. Clinical experiences vary with the region you are located in. Probably 50% or more of my classmates are from the metro Atlanta area and requested to be as close to home as possible because of family, kids, ect. I am from the metro Atlanta area, but I have requested the more rural rotations (Donalsonville, Tifton, Vidalia, Habersham, ect.), these rotations provide more autonomy and you really learn how to run a room on your own, rather than having to call the anesthesiologist to push your drugs. We have 3 sites that specialize in hearts (Macon, Athens, Northeast GA Medical), one OB site (but you get plenty of OB at others), our pediatric site is Children's in Augusta, and we have two locations for regional (Habersham, and Summitt... At those locations you do around 3-4 blocks/day), trauma is at Macon and GRU, and Neuro is at GRU.

There are usually 30 students per year. I have not heard of any of the students who have graduated having a hard time finding a job. GRU usually hires 3 new grads from our program, and other sites offer students jobs before they graduate.

Overall, the program is great. The first year of school is awful, and miserable... but the next year and a half make it all worth it. The fact that AA's are at some of the clinical sites should not influence your decision to attend the program. I have been to one rotation that also had AA students there, sharing cases was not an issue because we do cases with CRNAs only, and AA's did cases with AA's. Plus, many hospitals in the state utilize AA's, so learning how to work with them is an important clinical experience.

Sorry this was so scatter-brained, I hope I could be of SOME help! By the way, GRU will be renamed to Augusta University starting 1/16.

Natalie

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I am in my second year at GRU's nurse anesthesia program. The program is front loaded, meaning you are in class for the first year with occasional simulation time. The next year and a half you are rotating throughout the state doing your rotations. Clinical experiences vary with the region you are located in. Probably 50% or more of my classmates are from the metro Atlanta area and requested to be as close to home as possible because of family, kids, ect. I am from the metro Atlanta area, but I have requested the more rural rotations (Donalsonville, Tifton, Vidalia, Habersham, ect.), these rotations provide more autonomy and you really learn how to run a room on your own, rather than having to call the anesthesiologist to push your drugs. We have 3 sites that specialize in hearts (Macon, Athens, Northeast GA Medical), one OB site (but you get plenty of OB at others), our pediatric site is Children's in Augusta, and we have two locations for regional (Habersham, and Summitt... At those locations you do around 3-4 blocks/day), trauma is at Macon and GRU, and Neuro is at GRU.

There are usually 30 students per year. I have not heard of any of the students who have graduated having a hard time finding a job. GRU usually hires 3 new grads from our program, and other sites offer students jobs before they graduate.

Overall, the program is great. The first year of school is awful, and miserable... but the next year and a half make it all worth it. The fact that AA's are at some of the clinical sites should not influence your decision to attend the program. I have been to one rotation that also had AA students there, sharing cases was not an issue because we do cases with CRNAs only, and AA's did cases with AA's. Plus, many hospitals in the state utilize AA's, so learning how to work with them is an important clinical experience.

Sorry this was so scatter-brained, I hope I could be of SOME help! By the way, GRU will be renamed to Augusta University starting 1/16.

Natalie

thank you so much for replying Natalie! Very insightful. :)

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Awesome response, thank you so much for taking the time to write this. Just got an email back saying they should start notifying for interviews that are done in Jan. Also still waiting for the supplemental fee to open up because there's a few bugs with using nursing cas this year. I do have a question for you.. Anyone that you know of who was accepted applied with less than 1 yr but by the time they started had 1 1/2 yrs of icu experience? That's pretty much my situation.. At least I do have SICU experience with hemodynamic monitoring but I do know I'm jumping the gun a little.. Just really wanted to start early!

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Did anyone else get an email about the interview schedule?

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I received a email about an interview. Anyone else?

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I received an e-mail invitation to an interview as well! So excited/nervous!

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Any insight on the program for those who got in?

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