Lung Transplants

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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.

He has to learn to crawl, before he can walk, let alone run. Become the complete and total master of his little corner of the world, and that will give him or her the best footing to begin the next part of the journey. Time spent learning anesthesia and related anesthesia things would not be time well spent, quite yet. Poor return on investment.

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.

An SRNA will never do enough lung transplants (if they even get into a room at all) to do anything more than tasky skills you'd do on any other case. Certainly not enough to be able to "do" one. Lots of places where residents don't even do them because the fellows get them all. Agree with focusing on CC nursing skills and knowledge in preparation for anesthesia school.

Love the enthusiasm...wish more CRNA's had that, but a little naïve if lung transplants hold some kind of "pride of place".

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.

I don't believe "mean" or "hate" has any kind of context here. Advice that is heeded or not, valuable or not, isn't a question of morals or virtue. Calling something "mean" and "hate"ful that you disagree with reduces the conversation to name calling and betrays a certain lack of articulateness.

If you disagree, just intelligently and politely say so.

I don't believe "mean" or "hate" has any kind of context here. Advice that is heeded or not, valuable or not, isn't a question of morals or virtue. Calling something "mean" and "hate"ful that you disagree with reduces the conversation to name calling and betrays a certain lack of articulateness.

If you disagree, just intelligently and politely say so.

I didn't feel the need to code-switch in an unscholarly public forum simply for the sake of politeness, but since you insist. The word hate, in the context I used it, carried no inherent opinion on the morals or virtue of the individuals to whom I was responding. The state of nursing education in this country is abysmal at best, with nurse practitioners able to get their degrees completely online after handpicking their clinical sites, lending little credence to their academic legitimacy. Berating a person who has the desire to strive for the best possible experience in school, which is what I personally feel a number of people have done in this thread, is only discouraging a person who may have the ability to further the profession rather than contribute to the degree mill that has become nursing education in this country.

I applaud your willingness to have an open discussion about this, free from malice or spite, but in the post directly prior the one in which you berate me for using the word mean, you called the creator of this thread naive (with an umlaut to make yourself look regal), is that not reducing the discussion to name calling?

Specializes in Anesthesia.

I like BigPapaCRNAs analogy of learning to crawl before she can walk.

Telling somebody to read about lung transplants in Miller when they're a year out as an ICU RN is not good advice. Prior to our second semester it was suggested that we TRY read Lange's Pulmonary physiology. I read 15 pages before I tapped out because I got absolutely nothing out of it. Fast forward a couple of semesters later after receiving formal didactic pulmonary physiology instruction and the book now makes sense.

While graduate nursing outside of anesthesia DOES seem to be abysmal, It's not bad advice to tell somebody to master critical care nursing prior to starting anesthesia school rather than attempt to learn about a very focused area of surgery. Everything you need to know in anesthesia school is taught in anesthesia school (for most schools at least), and I have to say that the reading I did out of the Pass CCRN book and Marino's ICU book (this book is the best) has helped me A LOT in school. I've noticed some classmates who didn't study CCRN type stuff and/or have less experience struggle in certain courses while I was able to rely on clinical experience and stuff I learned while studying for the CCRN.

OP if you really want to study anesthesia now you can always purchase Miller or Morgan and Mikhail (this is a lot easier to read). You may or may not get something out of it at this point in time. It's likely that it won't mean as much to you now as it will after starting from the bottom up learning this stuff. It's kind of like starting out at level 20 in a video game skipping levels 1-19.

Almost everybody (except 1 person) in this thread who is going through it or has gone through it have suggested that it would be better to focus on learning as much as you can in the ICU. I've been reading Offlabel's posts for a couple years now, and he offers sound advice to a lot of people on here. He's been practicing a long time and career-wise is currently in the position that you're striving to be in. If he and most others who are going through or have gone through what you're attempting to do are giving you this advice, I wouldn't hurt to take it.

Marino's ICU book is very very useful for mastering ICU, and I would even refer to it when I was new and our resident on call didn't know what to do either. That and MAYBE Lange's pulmonary physiology or cardiovascular physiology if you're really motivated. You're a respiratory therapist as well so you may get a little more out of Lange's PP than I did prior to receiving formal instruction.

As a side note, I've never met one person throughout my journey who said it would be a good idea to study anesthesia prior to starting school. If anything, when asking how to prepare for school the most frequent piece of advice I received from CRNAs, SRNAs, MDAs, and 2 PDs was, "Take a long vacation before you start." The second most frequent was to save money and make sure that you're financially sound enough to not work for 3 years while you're in the program.

Good luck OP.

I didn't feel the need to code-switch in an unscholarly public forum simply for the sake of politeness, but since you insist. The word hate, in the context I used it, carried no inherent opinion on the morals or virtue of the individuals to whom I was responding. The state of nursing education in this country is abysmal at best, with nurse practitioners able to get their degrees completely online after handpicking their clinical sites, lending little credence to their academic legitimacy. Berating a person who has the desire to strive for the best possible experience in school, which is what I personally feel a number of people have done in this thread, is only discouraging a person who may have the ability to further the profession rather than contribute to the degree mill that has become nursing education in this country.

I applaud your willingness to have an open discussion about this, free from malice or spite, but in the post directly prior the one in which you berate me for using the word mean, you called the creator of this thread naive (with an umlaut to make yourself look regal), is that not reducing the discussion to name calling?

Awesome response, I mean that sincerely. Thank you. I took you for a gen x snow flake which your are obviously not. Point of order, I did not use an "umlaut". "Scare quotes" would be more accurate...but please do not hobble or bridle yourself when posting on this site for the sake of reduction in the interests of comprehension of the "unwashed masses". We could use a little "elevation", if you will forgive the use of 'scare quotes'. But to the point, 'hate', when used as an argument, is ***********.

Awesome response, I mean that sincerely. Thank you. I took you for a gen x snow flake which your are obviously not. Point of order, I did not use an "umlaut". "Scare quotes" would be more accurate...but please do not hobble or bridle yourself when posting on this site for the sake of reduction in the interests of comprehension of the "unwashed masses". We could use a little "elevation", if you will forgive the use of 'scare quotes'. But to the point, 'hate', when used as an argument, is ***********.

What is "scare quotes" or a "umlat" TIA. God Bless.

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