deemo21

Try the Army route. The US Army Graduate Program in Anesthesia (USAGPAN) allows you apply to the school directly as a civilian. You go into the school as an active duty student and get paid while attending their program. Some AF students also attend this program, although their entry is different, as you stated above. Unless you feel that you HAVE to go through the Air Force, this is a good option.

Level I and II trauma centers will likely have patients requiring a higher level of care. There are a lot of factors that go into a facility and their trauma designation, but in my research it seems to depend on the program that you are applying to. Depending on where you want to go, call or email the program directors in that area and see what they recommend. Sometimes it seems that some CRNA schools want ICU experience, some schools want high quality ICU experience at trauma centers. It will also depend on the rest of your stats, if you have really good grades, CCRN, good GRE scores if required, good LORs, this may not mean so much. Hopefully I have been helpful, even if I am not yet enrolled in CRNA school. -D

I am going to the August Reserve component BOLC. I am not sure if they are combined with the active component for a portion of the training. I will be in Texas though.

When you scan it you need to reduce the resolution and it will be saved as a smaller file. It will not be as clear to read, but it will be smaller.

I am in the same boat as ad33088 and am hoping that my pay will also not be delayed during my Aug OBLC training for reserves. I believe that since we are in Mypay already it shouldn't be a problem. The thing is that we may not be getting travel pay until about 30 days. We would use our government travel card for authorized expenses, i.e. lodging, until our travel pay kicked in. I am not sure what the case is though...but I have a mortgage to pay...

If you were applying for a staff nurse position, if the hospital offered a differential for a MSN you would be eligible. I don't believe that you would make a tremendous increase in pay because of your MSN. Your experience may make you a better candidate than someone else. If you completed a master's degree program and became a nurse practitioner with military and flight experience, it would be great to use that experience to apply for a position as a nurse practitioner as opposed to a staff nurse. But that's just my opinion. As I understand it, the ACNP at Case Western is still an acute care NP program, it just has the added benefit of having a few classes that include flight specific concerns for nursing practice.

OBLC dates can be found on ATTRS. Ask your recruiter for help with that.

This seems like a great advancement opportunity! I wonder how many nurses are involved... What kind of training did you go through for the 5 days Scooty Puff?

The active duty incentives and reserve component incentives are two different entities. When I was looking into STRAP initially, I was told that you will have to pay back all reserve incentives received if you were going to seek Active duty (loan repayments, stipends, etc.). This is if you did not complete your service obligation period after receiving the stipend. By becoming an active duty service member there are separate incentives for it though. The other option is to see if there are any AGR positions available. These positions are for reserve and guard members, but are full-time positions. Good luck

I heard that they may be closing entry into the BSN STRAP program after the last board closed earlier this year. Have any recruiters mentioned anything?

Thanks

Hello. I am a rapid response nurse and I had a patient yesterday who was on a stepdown unit. She was having runs of a wide-complex tachycardia in the 120s-130s. She was awake, slightly confused at baseline, just reporting "feeling lousy." They were treating her for VTach and ordered a Amiodarone bolus and drip. Despite the Amiodarone drip, she was still having the episodes of VTach. The doctor wanted to start a Lidocaine bolus and drip, in addition to the Amiodarone drip already running for the past 2-3 hours. Has anyone ever run Lidocaine and Amiodarone drips concurrently? I looked on our online Micromedex system and it said there were major drug-drug interactions causing cardiotoxicity, but only had "fair" documentation. I spoke with the pharmacists who did not have a concrete answer as to whether or not it was okay. One of them even said, "Well the computer system did not flag it so its probably not severely harmful." I spoke with the nursing supervisor who said that she has done it in code situations. I have given both lidocaine and amiodarone boluses in code situations, but usually it is a last ditch effort. I even spoke with the CCU nurses who have not done it before. When I called the doctor back to clarify the order, he was yelling and wanted to know why his orders were not followed without question. I ended up documenting everything and starting the drip. What would you have done? Has anyone done this? Should I have done something differently?

You do not need to be a bedside ICU nurse to take the CCRN. According to the AACN you need: "Practice as an RN or APRN is required for 1,750 hours in direct bedside care of acutely or critically ill patients during the previous two years, with 875 of those hours accrued in the most recent year preceding application. Eligible hours are those spent caring for the patient population (adult, pediatric or neonatal) of the exam for which you are applying." A stepdown patient is most definitely acutely ill. I took the exam as an ER nurse. I used the Laura Gasparis DVD's found at http://www.greatnurse.com. Other people also suggested using the CD-ROM from the Pass CCRN book. I didn't get a chance to really go through it due to time constraints. The questions though seemed a little harder than what was actually on the exam. I believe 1-2 months of studying, depending on your knowledge base and time commitment, is adequate. Good luck!

Hello. I am a dedicated RRT nurse at a major hospital. I was recently hired into this position. The staff primarily consisted of nurses with many years of ICU experience. This provided them with a strong critical care background. They were nervous about hiring me because I had an ER background. After doing this job for a few months, I feel that my role is still very similar to an ER nurse. A person has a complaint or a change in their physical condition, you look at their medical and surgical history, vital signs, diagnostics, and create a treatment plan with the provider. I think you would benefit from having ER competencies as well. ICU nurses are pretty used to having almost everything they need to fully take care of the patients in their environment and not having that available can make RRT calls frustrating.

According to the AACN all you need is 1,875 hours in the care of acutely or critically ill patients. In my opinion if you work as a staff nurse on an inpatient unit in an acute care facility you qualify. I am going to take the test and I have only ER experience. They suggest ICU, ER, PACU, Cath lab experience, but it is not required. I would sign up for the test if I were you. Good luck!