ICU ACNP to CRNA?

[FiremedicMike, BSN, RN, EMT-P]

Hey all, quick background, I've been a ff/paramedic for a long time, with a few years of critical care (MICU and rotor) experience managing vents and drips.  I have 2-4 years to go before I can retire and am strongly looking at CRNA school for my retirement job.

With that said, I really don't want to work as an RN in the ICU.  I have just over a year in the ED and it really is my speed.  I truly enjoy dealing with the unstable patients we get, but love stabilizing them and shooting them off to the floor.

So I'm wondering if working in the ICU as an ACNP would suffice for admission.  Yeah I know it's the longer route, but if I do decide to go the CRNA route then I really can't retire for 4.5 more years anyway (long, irrelevant story), so suffice to say - I have some time to kill.

[offlabel]

Don't see why not. But competency in whatever role you are/have been in are big determinants of whether experience is valuable to admissions committees. Getting competent as an ICU midlevel is in a completely different category and time frame as an ICU nurse. You'll be judged on a different level all together applying as an ACNP. And the expectation of time in practice will be meaningfully longer than an ICU nurse that applies at the same time as you. 

Forgot to add that an ACNP may present a potential liability to your application. PD's are looking for trainable, coachable maybe even maleable candidates that will take well to training and instruction and are not "stuck" in specific ways of looking at problems and managing them. A successful ACNP with meaningful experience has developed a very reliable way of doing things that may not adhere with anesthesia training. It's a toss up, IMHO.

[subee, MSN, CRNA]

That's quite a chunk of change to lay out for school for a retirement career. We're talking six figures for school and you won't have time to work.  The ANCP won't help you and would also be expensive.  Most schools want more than 1 year of ICU experience which you don't even want to do .  The average number of years of experience for people accepted is 2.9 years.  You sound happy with your ER experience so unless you can go to school for free with a stipend, it strikes me as self-defeating to go through all of that for a short career.

[FiremedicMike, BSN, RN, EMT-P]

subee said:

That's quite a chunk of change to lay out for school for a retirement career. We're talking six figures for school and you won't have time to work.  The ANCP won't help you and would also be expensive.  Most schools want more than 1 year of ICU experience which you don't even want to do .  The average number of years of experience for people accepted is 2.9 years.  You sound happy with your ER experience so unless you can go to school for free with a stipend, it strikes me as self-defeating to go through all of that for a short career.

To be clear, I plan on going on and not working as an ED nurse forever, I'm just trying to figure out the path to get to where I want.