Im young and want to be a CRNA

[wannab12crna]

Hi everyone,

I'm 18 a male and I live in Riverside California and am currently a freshmen at University of California Riverside. My goal in life is to be a CRNA and I will do anything to accomplish this. I enjoy helping people and have always wanted a job in health care. I had many doctor visits since I got a herniated disk when I was 16 from water polo. I think I developed a liking for the health fields from this. I had to get eppidurals and my anesthetist was one of the coolest guys ive met. Anyways, im really confused as to which path i should take to get into this field. Ive done research and have checked in to the anesthetist grad schools. I was thinking about entering into the field of CRNA through this method, or by going through the military (i like to travel a lot and i wouldnt mind being single till about 30+ anyways). The problem im having right now is that my school does not offer a major in nursing and the majors they do offer which would be accepted for grad school are pretty rigorous and have classes which all fill quickly. so i was thinking maybe i should go to another school for my undergrad, one with a nursing major. i also hate going to school near my home anyways i have too many distractions here. i was thinking i want to transfer to another school in california i could transfer to any cal state but i dont know which would be most respected by the admissions staff at the anesthetist schools. also what gpa does it take to get in, i know its a minimum 3.0 but i want to know with the competitiveness what the average accepted gpa is. im trying to get on the right track early so if anybody has any information that could help me out and show me what i need to be doing to become one, or if you could take the time to tell me your story of how you became a CRNA that would be awesome and ill love you for it.

thanks everyone,

Brad C.

[ICUDOUCME?]

What a nice kid you are!

My 2 cents worth is:

1. Have to be a nurse (BSN for most anesthesia schools, or an associate RN degree plus a bachelors in another field) so go to a school that has a nursing program and do what it takes to get in...GPA, prerequisites, etc.

2. Get the best grades you can in your undergrad classes, GPAs of 3.5 and higher are competitive for anesthesia school (I do know of people that have gotten in with less than that but with good GRE scores).

3. After you graduate with your BSN, get a job in a critical care unit of a hospital. A surgical ICU is excellent. I know many people, however that have experience in cardiovascular ICU and med/surg ICU.

4. While working in this setting, start studying for your GRE. Go get some study guides to help you. Then take it early so you can retake it if you don't get the score you want at first. anything above 900 is pretty good. But of course, the higher the better.

5. After about a year in the ICU, start applying for anesthesia school. By the time you get in, you will have two or three years of ICU experience. There are people who get in with just the minimum year requirement so that is an option.

Side notes: While in the ICU setting, seek out learning opportunities (once you are through the "oh crap" phase of learning the basics) with the sickest patients. Get comfortable with invasive monitoring and the drugs you give on a daily basis. Maybe you will want to get your critical care registered nurse certification (CCRN), which is a test that you take after you have been a critical care nurse for a set # of hours (1700?).

Also, this is a long haul and you are young. Just take it a step at a time and don't think too far ahead. That's what I had to do. First, I started taking classes that would get me into the nursing program. Then I took the steps I needed to from there. It's one semester at a time, one test at a time. Don't worry about the rest right now. Just get good grades and don't party too much or you can't get out of bed for class.

The military option is completely foreign to me so someone else will have to address that. But they have an excellent program and you can't go wrong there.