How busy are your clinicals?

Published

  1. Number of cases a month

    • 1
      10-20
    • 0
      20-30
    • 2
      30-40
    • 10
      greater than 40

13 members have participated

How busy are your clinicals?

How many cases a month do you average?

I am just curious, as I am four months into clinicals, and half way done with the recommended number of cases to graduate stipulated by the AANA.

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Great to hear from you! Glad things have eased enough for you to participate in the forum.

I graduated from school years ago with 950 cases over the course of the program. 17 pediatric cases/day will certainly boost the numbers to be leveled by the 12h aneurysm clipping or 8h spinal instrumentation.

I've always believed the numbers for CCNA were low. But one needs to consider some of the teaching facilities. I work where lady partsl hysterectomies take about 45-60 min. I then go to a teaching facility where 3h later they FINALLY have the uterus out...yet to close....so 4.5h later, we've got the patient in recovery and raring to go for the second case of the day at noon! These are not disparaging comments to those learning...none of us were born with a silver laryngoscope in our hand! Learning takes time.

Along this same vein of thought, I work at a full service facility....hearts, neuro, ortho, gyn, whatever. So, giving 20cc of fentanyl between induction and incision, to a patient undergoing a thoracotomy and waking them up within 90 minutes, extubating and taking to PACU, comfortable, breathing, and awake is much different than giving 2cc of fentanyl to a patient undergoing a submuscular, inframmary incision breast augmentation where the surgeon infiltrates with local anesthetic for skin incision and infiltrates the surgical field after the procedure.

The point is one needs to tailor their anesthetic practice to clientele and to the surgeons. So getting 250 cases in four months is great. But don't get caught up in the numbers...experience in knowing how to handle what you take on is essential to nurse anesthesia.

PG

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Thanks for the reply passin gas.

I figured this is how my post would be interpreted. (in fact I almost deleted it) I fully understand that numbers do not really matter. But like your earlier statement, I felt that the numbers required were a bit low, and was wondering if any programs actually only had have clinical environments where those numbers are hard to obtain.

Due to the variable nature of clinical experiences, I feel that measuring the experience in hours, or cases will always fall short. Unfortunately, there is not a more throuough way to evaluate experience.

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Measuring experience in hours or cases will always fall short as an evaluation tool, as you pointed out. Hence the need for meeting minimum requirements in many categories to ensure a wide variety of clinical experiences. Depending on the patient population, some of the categories are difficult to fulfill the minimum requirements. So rotations are set up to meet those needs. These are invaluable for students to get exposed to other anesthetic techniques, different equipment, different agents, etc.

It'll be interesting to see how different clinical environments impact total case numbers. Would you consider revising the poll or adding a second one to include primary clinical site...ie teaching facility, private facility, etc?

PG

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nilepoc,

I too find this an interesting question, and an interesting poll.

When people answer how many cases per month, how many clinical days a month does this represent? I know you are in a front loaded program, so I am assuming you are in clinicals 5 days a week.

I went to an integrated program. We were in clinicals every other day. This might be something to take into consideration, as we discuss the results.

loisane crna

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Specializes in Nurse Anesthetist.

My clinicals are Tues thru Fri, unless on call. Ave. 32-40 hours a week plus 8 hoours of classes.

Random amt of cases a day, depending upon the clinical site. We change sites every 30 days.

I have 8 months to go until graduation and have all except my cardiac done. I will have a cardiac rotation coming in the Spring.

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Well I finished last Monday with 820 cases. This was from an integrated program. First semester 1 day/wk clinical. 2nd semester 3 days/wk. The remainder was 4 days/wk clinical.

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after one year into the program.

~300 cases, ~500 hrs

1st semester no clinical, 2nd semester 3d/week, 3rd semester 4d/week.

will start 2nd year clinical increases to 5d/week

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Here is the description of my clinical setup.

The first year was all classwork with six observation days. i.e. cases don't count.

Last fifteen months, full time clinicals, with two calss days a month.

In the last four months, 241 cases with 370 hours of care.

My primary clinical site is a teaching institution, but there are no anesthesia residents. So I get my choice of cases.

I am going on my first out rotation to a county hospital with a lower volume of cases, and again no residents.

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Well,

I have 4 months left of anesthesia school and have:

970 cases

1800 hours.

I have clinicals five days per week with class on Wednesdays after clinicals. I have met all of the requirements, but feel that I need more thoracic/vascular.

I will probably have just short of 1200 cases by graduation.

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Get as much clinical experience as you can. Anesthesia is primarily a clinical specialty and the more cases of all kinds you do. the better you become.

It appears that all of you students are getting a lot of good experience and that is great. Keep up the good work.

Yoga

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