Just graduated from CRNA school

[ProgressiveThinking]

I just graduated from CRNA school, and boy does it feel good. I remember coming on here asking if my GPA was good enough (my undergraduate GPA wasn't the best), and reading threads about what type of ICU I should work in.

I was a non-ICU nurse who had a comfortable forever job with a great pension, but I got bored and decided to pursue CRNA in the Fall of 2014. Started in ICU in 2015, took the GRE, CCRN, and CMC, and I'm just now graduating.

Anyways, a lot of people answered my questions, so I'm happy to pay it forward and answer anybody's questions about CRNA school or the process of applying and getting accepted, since I'm not doing anything else but studying for boards now!

[loveanesthesia]

Most important is the mindset and that can start while working in the ICU. Read, read, read about the pharmacology and pathophysiology of your patients. Select a program with generous clinical hours . Many programs in the Midwest have a history of producing new graduates who immediately practice independently-although some of the newer ones in Colleges of Nursing are heavy on nursing courses and light on clinical. Students don’t have to be left alone in cases to learn independence but preceptors must expect independence. And the student must put the work in and not be looking for the easiest way to graduation.

[loveanesthesia]

38 minutes ago, ProgressiveThinking said:

I agree with this. One of the MDs who trained me is convinced that there will be more MD anesthesiologist only practices and more CRNA only practices in the future. In his residency, saying you didn't want to do your own cases and wanted to work in an ACT was viewed at as taboo (he works in an ACT now though lol). CRNAs are the more cost effective option when they're allowed to practice to their full scope.

I think there’ll be more groups with both MDs and CRNAS with everyone doing cases. No medical direction.

[NurseL20, ADN]

Congratulation!! What was your GPA and GRE scores when you applied? Also how many programs did you apply to?

[ProgressiveThinking, MSN, CRNA]

1 hour ago, loveanesthesia said:

I think there’ll be more groups with both MDs and CRNAS with everyone doing cases. No medical direction.

Agreed. I'm not sure if anesthesia management companies are here to stay, but they seem to be taking over and based on the interviews I've gone through that seems to be their primary model on the west coast

[ProgressiveThinking, MSN, CRNA]

51 minutes ago, Loprev said:

Congratulation!! What was your GPA and GRE scores when you applied? Also how many programs did you apply to?

BSN GPA was 3.59. My overall was lower (you can DM me and ill tell you what it was haha) because my first year of college I partied, and didn't really focus on school at all, but I had an uphill trend with grades, and a good science GPA. I changed my major so many times that by the time I got my BSN I had enough units for 2 bachelor degrees. My freshman year in college I actually got an F in physiology. I eventually retook it when I was a little more serious about school, and got an A. I explained this in my personal statement and it never came up in any of my interviews. I also tried to pad my application by being charge nurse, rapid response nurse, etc. I'm also pretty good at interviewing which I believe had the most to do with me being accepted.

GRE 309 (150 math, 159 verbal, 5.0 writing).

I applied to 3 programs, and was accepted to 2 of them. I cancelled the interview with the third. I was going to apply for more programs if I had to, but I was accepted to a program that didn't require me to move. I was very fortunate that I didn't have to move for school, and now I don't have to move for my job.

Also, I was selective about the programs I applied to. If a program only accepted say, 10 students, for me that program wouldn't have been worth applying to because I knew I would have been competing against people who had 4.0 GPAs that didn't mess up their first year in school.

The other thing that I think helped me was that the ICU I worked in was at the same hospital as my program's primary clinical site, so I was able to network and talk to some of the anesthesia staff about the program. I was actually accepted on the spot during my interview.

[NurseBlaq]

Just stopped through to say CONGRATS! ?

[MountaineerFan57, BSN]

I’m glad to hear your ICU experience was a level 2 center. I’m 2 years in at a 21 bed ICU that is the only ICU in the area. We do open hearts, neuro, DKA, sepsis, respiratory failure, CRRT, occasionally ECMO. I’ve been hesitant about even trying to apply because everyone says you need to be at a level one center.
Did you have any fears about not being “smart” enough to retain all the material? I’m terrified of getting halfway into the first semester and realizing that I can’t keep up.

[Shanneliz SRNA, DNP]

1 hour ago, MountaineerFan57 said:

I’m glad to hear your ICU experience was a level 2 center. I’m 2 years in at a 21 bed ICU that is the only ICU in the area. We do open hearts, neuro, DKA, sepsis, respiratory failure, CRRT, occasionally ECMO. I’ve been hesitant about even trying to apply because everyone says you need to be at a level one center.
Did you have any fears about not being “smart” enough to retain all the material? I’m terrified of getting halfway into the first semester and realizing that I can’t keep up.

Just wanted to drop by and say that I was at a level two trauma center as well and got accepted. So you don’t NEED to be in a level one. Although it does look better, I’d you have other strengths those could make up for it, such as CCRN TCRN(I got this newer certification fir trauma nurses) I was in a 12 bed trauma icu and we didn’t even do opens hearts or ecmo. So that’s great that you’ve been exposed to them. Try applying if that’s the only thing holding you back! Blow them away in the interview! ?

[JBudd, MSN]

Just wanted to say congratulations!

[ProgressiveThinking, MSN, CRNA]

12 hours ago, MountaineerFan57 said:

I’m glad to hear your ICU experience was a level 2 center. I’m 2 years in at a 21 bed ICU that is the only ICU in the area. We do open hearts, neuro, DKA, sepsis, respiratory failure, CRRT, occasionally ECMO. I’ve been hesitant about even trying to apply because everyone says you need to be at a level one center.
Did you have any fears about not being “smart” enough to retain all the material? I’m terrified of getting halfway into the first semester and realizing that I can’t keep up.

Your ICU sounds fine. Some level 2 trauma centers and community hospitals end up being better experience than some level 1 centers, especially teaching hospitals (this obviously isn't always the case though). Some level 1 centers are so resident-focused when it comes to teaching that you're required to call an attending or resident prior to titrating a drip (or doing anything at all), while at the community hospital there may be more protocols in place to manage the patient on your own, starting multiple gtts and resuscitating etc, so you don't have to call your attending in the middle of the night and you're doing whatever you have to to keep your patient alive. Personally, I would take the latter experience to prepare me for anesthesia school. Just make sure to do a good job describing your ICU experience on your CV, and emphasize it in your interview.

I think the first couple of weeks everybody feels in over their heads, especially if you've been out of school for awhile. After taking a couple tests and doing well, I started to realize that I could actually do it. While I do think that intelligence/"smarts" play a role, I think that the most important factor is discipline. You have to be disciplined enough to sit there and read for hours on end, and go back and read it again later.

The material isn't rocket science, and while you do go into the what/why on a WAY deeper level than nursing school ever did (nursing school hardly scratches the surface), it's the volume of information that you're being tested on that makes things difficult. My goal was always to go over information three times before I was tested on it, which worked well for me. Some of what you learn builds on your CCRN foundation of knowledge, so having that background is helpful.

[Aprils]

Congratulations! Thank you for doing this.

I'm currently working in the OR as a new grad, but I'm strongly considering getting some ICU experience to pursue CRNA after hours of observations and talking to my anesthetist coworkers. My undergrad GPA was subpar (also partied and didn't care), nursing GPA is a 4.0 so a similar upward trend like yours. My question is...would I hate being a CRNA if I didn't enjoy my ICU rotation during nursing school? I was fortunate enough to rotate to the neuro ICU, but I felt like it was "boring" in the sense that I wasn't able to do much besides observe.

[ProgressiveThinking, MSN, CRNA]

2 hours ago, abcheyitsme said:

Congratulations! Thank you for doing this.

I'm currently working in the OR as a new grad, but I'm strongly considering getting some ICU experience to pursue CRNA after hours of observations and talking to my anesthetist coworkers. My undergrad GPA was subpar (also partied and didn't care), nursing GPA is a 4.0 so a similar upward trend like yours. My question is...would I hate being a CRNA if I didn't enjoy my ICU rotation during nursing school? I was fortunate enough to rotate to the neuro ICU, but I felt like it was "boring" in the sense that I wasn't able to do much besides observe.

When you're the ICU nurse, and not the student, ICU will be far from boring. It was boring because as a student, you were a spectator, looking from the outside in, and didn't have the burden of being the primary ICU nurse weighing down on your shoulders. There's a lot that a good ICU nurse has to master. Some people like ER, and say it's faster paced, which it is. Having worked a little bit of ER though, the patients that weren't sick (stubbed toe, pain med seekers, etc.) started to irk me, and it got old. My hat goes off to the career ER nurses for putting up with it. Where do all the super sick patients of the ER go? ICU. The ICU generally only has really sick patients, and when you have two of them that are being intubated and started on pressors and are actively trying to die on you it's far from boring. If anything, I tell new grads to do ICU because it opens up a lot of other doors aside from anesthesia.

It's difficult to predict whether or not you would like anesthesia, and you would have to shadow to see if it's something you like. Even then, you probably won't understand what the CRNA is doing until you go through it yourself (I didn't), and I thought anesthesia was going to be a lot easier than it actually ended up being. I trained at a site with mostly traumas and ASA 3s/4s ( really sick patients ), so my perception maybe skewed compared to what others may say about the difficulty of anesthesia.

FWIW, I had classmates that hated every type of bedside nursing, but loved anesthesia. Anesthesia personally sparked my interest because the things about ICU that I liked (working with vents, titrating drips, working with cool toys, learning physiology and hemodynamics, etc) transfer over into it.