Lung Transplants

Nursing Students SRNA

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I am wondering what kind of experiences people are getting doing lung transplants. I toured a Lung Transplant Unit once and it was very cool. I heard in another thread here that CRNAS arent doing these cases unless maybe at a large city hospital.

I am doing research into which schools/programs allow their surgeons to allow students in to these ORs and give anesthesia? TIA, God Bless.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

I did a few lung transplants during school. The surgeons don't really dictate whether or not students are able to participate on the anesthesia side of things, so it's not really prudent to use that as a metric in choosing a school. There's no school that is going to have a student do 10+ lung transplants during training because there simply aren't enough lungs to go around for all the people learning. The academic center I was at had anesthesiology residents, who trained to do these cases as well as SRNAs. The residents got precedence on these types of cases. CRNAs are able to do them (meaning, there's no restriction saying the can't participate in these cases), but as long as there are residents in training and there isn't a more interesting / complex case for them to do, the resident will be assigned to it. The CRNA would give breaks during the case and take over at 3 (or whenever the resident left for the day, which was 3 o clock at this hospital). Lung transplants take place at teaching facilities (usually), so there will likely be residents there. It depends on case volume to dictate how many you'll be involved in during your education. I read in a previous post that you want to specialize in lung transplant. There are specialized cardiac teams at some hospitals, but I haven't heard in someone specializing specifically in lungs just since there aren't 2-4 done per day (as is the case with hearts at a large facility).

I'd guess one place that might have the lung transplant volume you're looking for for during education is Mayo - they have a 42 month program (barf) you could look into.

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Wow. Thanks a lot for the info. Did you have a rough time finding surgerys with all the residents and med students around?

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Specializes in Critical Care.
Wow. Thanks a lot for the info. Did you have a rough time finding surgerys with all the residents and med students around?

No. There are plenty of surgeries, just comparatively not a lot of lung transplants.

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Specializes in ICU.

Yeah, you will be lucky to 1 or 2 lung transplants. I have not done one, and I don't think 95% of my class have done one either. Most of the lung cases we get are thoracotomies, wedge resections, etc, and even those can be hard to find.

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Wow thanks MilkofA. I didnt know lung surgerys were so rare.

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Lung Transplants? Really? How many facilites do you think, in the entire country, do these cases? How many lung tranplants are even done every year, maybe a couple thousand, at most, in the entire country. Please, please, please, do not let that by the litmus test for the program you wish to attend.

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Lung Transplants? Really? How many facilites do you think, in the entire country, do these cases? How many lung tranplants are even done every year, maybe a couple thousand, at most, in the entire country. Please, please, please, do not let that by the litmus test for the program you wish to attend.

I dont know, are CRNAs doing the anesthesia for them?

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Meanwhile.. i am looking for a textbook on anesthesiology for lung surgery. Any reccs? TIA. Should i read something more generic?

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Specializes in Nursing-Anesthesia.

I can appreciate your willingness to learn anesthesia for lung surgery but......don't.....it's going to be over your head. In the meantime, know your ICU patho and meds inside and out. That's the best advice that I can offer you. Study the vent and why changes are made to the settings. Also, there's a good chance that you will never see a lung transplant in school (or lifetime) and you'll be lucky to get in 15-20 thoracotomies. However, you'll do a million cystos :)

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Why you gotta hate on someone trying to learn? I think if this person wants to shoot for the stars he got that right. There's schools out there that don't compete with anesthesia residents but do manage to do with bigger cases. It's all about do your due diligence and finding the school that meets your needs. But telling someone not to "learn anesthesia" just plain mean.

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Specializes in Nursing-Anesthesia.

I would never discourage someone from wanting to learn our profession....EVER. That would be asinine. However, if I were to tell him to go and read anesthesia books in relation to lung surgery, I'm afraid that's not very sound advice. Again, I would stick to the CCRN material, critical care medications, and patho. That's what I would have told myself before entering NA school.

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