hello all crna's! i am currently in nursing school for my bsn and thought that i wanted to become a crna. however, the nurses that i have come into contact with have raised the following points, which have me thinking that perhaps this isn't the path i want to take. please let me know what you think so that i know whether or not i should explore this option further!
1--it is a VERY boring job. you just do the pre-op health assessment, administer the anesthetic, and sit and wait........for hours......
2--you have to deal with surgeons which are some of the most difficult doctors to deal with.
3--you don't do much "nursing" since the patient is asleep for most of the time.
4--the reason that the money is so good is because there is lot of opportunity for mistakes and a lot of responsibility but not much reward.
5--you deal more with machines than people.
please let me know what your experience has been as it would really help me with deciding on my career path! i plan on shadowing a crna during my winter break if i can to see what it is really like, but i'd enjoy your input as well!
1. It is not a boring job. You don't just administer the anesthetic and switch to autopilot. For one thing, administration of an anesthetic is not just a one-time thing. You do it second-to-second, to make sure your patients are comfortable and their condition is optimal for surgery.
2. You have to deal with all sorts of difficult people, whether they are surgeons or housekeepers. Yes, some surgeons are difficult. But so are many other people too. In my experience, the type of response I get depends a lot on my attitude. Good attitude = good reponse in 98% of cases.
3. What do you think nursing is? My patients don't need to be wide awake and alert for me to provide nursing care. I guess I am confused as to your definition of nursing. Do I sit down and have a heart-to-heart with them for a couple hours before surgery? No. But I am acutely aware of their vital signs, hemodynamics, lab results, and the progress of the surgeon so that I can intervene immediately if something is amiss. That's nursing to me.
4. The reasons that CRNAs are paid so well is because they have to have a huge amount of knowledge stored in their brains to be pulled out at a moment's notice. CRNAs are worth every penny they are paid, if not more. I know that every ICU nurse thinks that their patients are the sickest, but truly, a patient is at their most vulnerable time when they are in the middle of surgery and not in control of their most basic bodily functions. That's what CRNAs do: provide an environment optimal for surgery while at the same time providing for the maximum safety and stability possible for the patient.
5. Yes, we do use some machinery. But that machinery is attached to our patients. We use the data from the machines to help make decisions regarding patient care. However, nothing is a substitute for good old-fashioned assessment. If your assessment skills aren't good enough that you could provide an anesthetic without monitors if you had to, then you shouldn't be doing anesthesia.
I am curious. You say that you wanted to go to school to become a CRNA after you complete BSN school. What made you decide on anesthesia? It doesn't sound as if you know exactly what a CRNA does. I would follow the advice of some of the posters before me - shadow a couple to see if it is really what you want to do.
Thank you so much for this post. You have pretty much cemented my goal of becoming a CRNA now. :)
SCmomof3, RN
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