My name is Henry, and this fall I'll be an entering college freshman. I'm contemplating whether to go for a BSN or take the pre-medical route. Lifestyle comfortability is important to me -- besides an interest in actual physician/CRNA work, doctors' salaries have always been attractive to me. However, physician salaries (at least, those of general/family practitioners) have fallen in recent years, while the salaries of CRNAs have risen.
To be honest, I'm not excited about taking pre-medical courses in college -- biology is okay, but all the intensive chemistry and math makes me dread college (BSN students at my school only take Survey of Chemistry courses). On the other hand, I find nursing classes dealing with biology, health science, anatomy, ethics, pharmacology, etc. interesting (I took an intro to nursing course during my senior year of highschool that can be submitted for college credit and found the course material enjoyable).
In my mid-sized city (200,000 pop. est.), hospitals/private clinics are currently offering $120k-$130k (public hospitals) and $150-$170k (private health care) as starting salaries. I won't beat around the bush -- these figures are attractive (hehe, "figures - attractive"...er, ahem).
However, I graduate college in 2010 and would be entering a CRNA program in 2012 (after the mandatory year of ICU practice); subsequently, I would begin work as a CRNA in 2014. I'm unsure of job/salary outlook forecasts this far in to the future (I've read that 6,000 CRNAs will be needed by 2010). Is the myriad of jobs and high salaries predicted to remain steady into the distant future? Or, after the shortage of CRNAs is satisfied, will salaries likely drop below the $100k level?
