I have a B.S. degree, what would it take to become a CRNA?

airbender · Mar 15, 2010

You have to get another bachelor's degree in nursing ( with a competitive GPA), and then find a job in critical care. Most schools require a minimum of 1 year of critical care experience. Many programs require much more experience to be a competitive applicant. It's not the type of specialty you'll find an accelerated BS to Masters for non-nurses. It's a pretty grueling process, from what I hear....Good luck!

AccelCNL, MSN, RN · Mar 15, 2010

Ditto to the post above.

You have to have a BSN degree and at least one years experience (some programs want more than that) in a critical care area. Then after taking some extra sciences ( physics is usually required for CRNA programs...that particular science is not required fro a BSN program usually)/

If you are serious about becoming a CRNA start the journey by getting you BSN.

PMFB-RN, RN · Mar 15, 2010

You do NOT need a BSN if your goal is to be a CRNA. It would be helpful but a BSN is not required. A bachelor's degree is required but you already have one. What you must do is become an RN. There are several options. You could go to a community college. That would take 2-4 years depending on where you live and the type of admissions they use. Other options are to do an accelerated BSN. These are intensive nursing schools that are between 12-18 months long. You could also do a a regular BSN. That would take you about two and a half years.

You must get very good grades in nursing school to have a good chance of getting into CRNA school.

After you are an RN you can start to think about getting into CRNA school. You will need to get a job as an RN in an intensive care unit. The bigger the unit with the higher acuity (sicker patients) the better. One year of ICU experience is absolutely required but to be competitive you will likely need 2 or 3 years. After you are an RN with some ICU experience you can apply to CRNA school. It is highly competitive with lots of fully qualified applicants not getting accepted each year. That said every single person I know who has ever applied has got in, maybe not on their first try though.

Right now you should forget about CRNA school and just concentrate on becoming a good RN. One other thing. If your goal is to go CRNA I would kind of keep that to yourself when applying to nursing school and for sure keep it to yourself when applying for ICU RN jobs.

LilMSSunshine · Mar 15, 2010

CRNA is very competitive. I would definitely get a bachelors in nursing, and some work experience before applying to CRNA school.

PMFB-RN, RN · Mar 15, 2010

CRNA is very competitive. I would definitely get a bachelors in nursing, and some work experience before applying to CRNA school.

*** One can not apply to CRNA school without critical care work experience. People from my unit with degrees in something other than nursing seem to get accepted the same as those with BSNs. But then as I mentioned all the people I know who applied have been accepted. Usually 4-12 nurses a year from our SICU go off to CRNA school. One of the reasons new grad BSNs are no longer hired into the 7 month critical care nurse residency.

cookderosa · Mar 15, 2010

I'm not sure why, but for some reason there is a myth that you need a BSN to become a CRNA. This gets asked all the time, and people keep saying you need a BSN. It's just not true. MANY programs I have looked at clearly state a bachelor's degree in any field is acceptable. I have spent the past 6 months looking at any and every NA program in the country- you do NOT need a BSN as a standard. You DO need a bachelor's degree.

You do need the prereqs, which are essentially the same as the pre-med lists you see anywhere (give or take depending on the school) which give you an idea of what kind of classes you'll need to master.

Columbia, and a few others, have a direct non-nursing entrance program that allows you to get your RN as part of your master's degree. You leave school for a year-work- and then start back in. There are many down sides to that path, which I won't go into now. But, you may want to consider that too.

So, what do you need to do? Get your RN cheaply- community college - and integrate your sciences before/during/after. Grad school is going to cost a fortune, don't waste resources on your undergrad.

After you get your RN, work in an ICU for a year and then you qualify for admission.

Getting in, as you may have heard, is another story :) But, you'll qualify, and with excellent science grades and a strong GRE exam you have a shot! Good luck to you!

*p.s. if you are interested, there is an online premed science sequence offered at the New England University (Maine) College of Osteopathic Medicine. They also have a NA program. I wish I had found out about the school earlier, I'd have taken all of my sciences with them.

PMFB-RN, RN · Mar 16, 2010

So, what do you need to do? Get your RN cheaply- community college - and integrate your sciences before/during/after. Grad school is going to cost a fortune, don't waste resources on your undergrad.

*** This is a good point. Only fly in the ointment is that so many community colleges have such long wait lists. You are correct about not needing a BSN. Some schools, usually those that are part of big state universities and who grant the MSN for CRNA do require a BSN, but lots of others do not.

A very good friend of mine graduated recently from the CRNA program in la Crosse Wisconsin. He had a BS in biology, an ADN and graduated from his CRNA program with a MS in biology. One of the CRNAs I work with has her BS in English, an ADN and an MS in Health care Administration - that's the degree her CRNA school granted when she finished CRNA school.

I know several of my coworkers who where shopping around for a CRNA program deliberately avoided any program that granted an MSN as the degree for CRNA as they wanted to avoid as much nursing theory type classes as possible.

cookderosa · Mar 16, 2010

So, what do you need to do? Get your RN cheaply- community college - and integrate your sciences before/during/after. Grad school is going to cost a fortune, don't waste resources on your undergrad.
*** This is a good point. Only fly in the ointment is that so many community colleges have such long wait lists. You are correct about not needing a BSN. Some schools, usually those that are part of big state universities and who grant the MSN for CRNA do require a BSN, but lots of others do not.
A very good friend of mine graduated recently from the CRNA program in la Crosse Wisconsin. He had a BS in biology, an ADN and graduated from his CRNA program with a MS in biology. One of the CRNAs I work with has her BS in English, an ADN and an MS in Health care Administration - that's the degree her CRNA school granted when she finished CRNA school.
I know several of my coworkers who where shopping around for a CRNA program deliberately avoided any program that granted an MSN as the degree for CRNA as they wanted to avoid as much nursing theory type classes as possible.

Waiting lists can be a good thing if you have a lot of sciences to take- especially the chem sequence. That can be up to 6 semesters. (Intro, Gen1, Gen2, Orgo1, Orgo2, Biochem) I'm in a similar situation, and honestly, I am enjoying the waiting - plus I have time to really learn the sciences. I'm fully convinced that if you can't sail through the sciences, that CRNA school is probably too hard. It's better to find out in a community college class for $400 than at Columbia after a $15k semester.

I am SO VERY interested to learn more about the non MSN or DNP CRNA degrees- I wrongly assumed they were all MSN/DNPs. Wow. I'm going to look a little more into those options. Thanks!!

PMFB-RN, RN · Mar 16, 2010

Waiting lists can be a good thing if you have a lot of sciences to take- especially the chem sequence. That can be up to 6 semesters. (Intro, Gen1, Gen2, Orgo1, Orgo2, Biochem) I'm in a similar situation, and honestly, I am enjoying the waiting - plus I have time to really learn the sciences. I'm fully convinced that if you can't sail through the sciences, that CRNA school is probably too hard. It's better to find out in a community college class for $400 than at Columbia after a $15k semester.
I am SO VERY interested to learn more about the non MSN or DNP CRNA degrees- I wrongly assumed they were all MSN/DNPs. Wow. I'm going to look a little more into those options. Thanks!!

*** I suggest going to the AANA web site and spending some time clicking on the links to the different programs and reading about them.

trae55 · Mar 16, 2010

Look for an accelerated bsn program. The one here is only a year long and you have to have a bachelor's to get in. You have a better chance of getting a critical care job with a bsn compared to an adn (most of the time). Then, apply to CRNA school.

cookderosa · Mar 16, 2010

Look for an accelerated bsn program. The one here is only a year long and you have to have a bachelor's to get in. You have a better chance of getting a critical care job with a bsn compared to an adn (most of the time). Then, apply to CRNA school.

>>

Is that true??

When you consider that an ADN is going to cost about $8000 and an accelerated program can cost $35,000 I'd really want to know if this is true. I know i'm not the op, but this is a decision I have to make too- so I'd really like to hear your thoughts. Is that $27,000 really going to promise someone a job in an ICU?