ssrhythm

Anyone else on here having problems reaching the NBCRNA or with their recertification application? I have 78.5 class A CEs and 14 ACLS/PALS credits, a rural trauma development course that was 8 hours, and several random 1 hour CEs. The AANA transfers credits to the NBCRNA that I earn from Audio Digest...the 78.5 hours. The NBCRNA has these as 75.5 hours and a notice that says they are aware of the problem with discrepancies between actual hours earned and what is transferring over and they are working with the AANA to get it fixed. Well, when I try to call the NBCRNA, any mailbox for any person I attempt to leave a message with it "full and no longer able to accept messages...goodbye." I have emailed them three times regarding what I need to do to get my CE credits correct on my application so that I can pay them to allow me to continue to do what I have earned the right to do. No one at the AANA will answer their phones and I can only leave messages that are not being returned. When trying to upload CE documents to their CE portal...I get an "oops 404 site not found" error message. I have a damn plenty to say about each of these organizations...another time. For now, I simply need them to recognize the CEs I've earned and take my damn money. Anyone here have any advice for me regarding getting them to get my CEs logged in and credited? Contacting a human? Working remotely due to covid in no excuse for not checking messages and returning calls.

Back when I was on here a bunch, I remember there being a job posting/heads up sub-category. I don't see that anymore, so I'll post this here. I'm looking for the right fit to be my partner. Hospital employee. Incredibly light schedule with incredibly light callback. This is a solo position, so you must have some years of non-supervised, completely autonomous experience, and possess the confidence that you can handle the occasional disaster that rolls into the ED for stabilization and maintenance until the chopper arrives. It is a solo position, and if you can handle it, you know it. Must be confident but kind and chilled...the caseload is such that we don't get in a hurry...we don't need to. The OR crew is a tight-nit team and we respect each other and enjoy our time together...in short, we have fun doing the work we love. Job is 26 weeks/year, and we want someone to become part of and commit to this community. That said, I am extremely flexible and can work any base schedule (week/on week/off...three weeks on/three weeks off...etc. I like doing locums to augment the pay here (which is excellent), so I will appreciate someone who is willing to do longer stints from time to time...especially in the Summer months. In return, you will have the same long stints off yourself. This is a gem of a job in an awesome, rural town, and you will absolutely have the flexibility in scheduling to take long vacations to do the things you've always wanted but could not get the continuous time off to do. In addition to the weeks off, your weeks on will afford you more time at home with your family than any other job I've seen in my career. If you have the experience and are up to the challenges of solo practice and the above sounds good to you, please PM me here (if that is possible) or respond with a contact number or email addy. Thanks.

Traffic on here looks incredibly low and slow, but I remember some great members offering great advice when I used to frequent this site. I am now at a very rural hospital working solo, and I see a tremendous community need for a pain clinic here. I mentioned the possibility to my CEO, and he is excited and interested in exploring the possibilities. This town is tiny and isolated, thus it will never attract an established pain doc, so this will be an endeavor that will be built here from the ground up. My employer is willing to get me coverage and pay for the necessary training for me to operate this clinic. That said, I know next to nothing about the logistics of starting such a clinic and getting it up and running. I'm hoping to hear from as many CRNAs as possible that operate in this capacity to find out exactly what their contracts look like, what their start up looked like (if opening a new clinic/service from scratch), any pitfalls they ran into and wish they had known to avoid etc. If you have any experience in this or know someone who does and wouldn't mind putting me in contact with them, please let me know. Thanks in advance.

And let me add this...where I work, we have the very best surgeons I've ever worked with. While there are three that can be a pain in the orifice every once and a while, they all have tremendous respect for the anesthesia providers, RNs, Scrubs...everyone in the department. Not only do we all get along well at work, many of the surgeons are very good friends with the anesthesia team members and many of the other OR staff, and getting together outside of work for beers, wine parties, dinners, community events etc. is not uncommon at all. Do not think that every OR and every hospital is the same...if ******* surgeons and a stressful work environment are weighing you down, go small, rural, and autonomous. Life is too short to have anyone talking down to you as their necessary subordinate on a daily basis.

For those of you who have this same sentiment...how many CRNA jobs have you had? How many different regions of the country have you worked in? I ask this, because I see and know so many people who finished school and took the first open job at the major hospital we trained at...often accepting the job before graduating. Some did so because they lived in the area already and did not want to move. Some did so because they were worried about actually getting a job and having a paycheck asap after graduation. The mothership hospital we trained at is a huge ACT practice facility where tensions are always high and pay is ridiculously low. I know money is not everything, but having a CEO offer you 200K with great benefits give you a great, appreciated feeling. I did not leave my training area simply for the money, but I could not see myself working for 160K with no autonomy in a virtual continuation of school where I had no autonomy. I left my home and the area where my mom and dad live and moved to a rural town ten hours away because they were offering me a pile more money and complete autonomy. When I interviewed, it was obvious that the people working at the hospital were very happy and considered their co-workers family. The environment in the surgical department was laid back, friendly, and saturated with mutual appreciation and respect for EVERYONE. The cases are bread and butter, so I am rarely in a case for more than 2.5 hours, but it does not matter because during a 3 hour case, the time flies, as everyone in the room is interacting in a serious but absolutely relaxed and often fun manner. I pre-op all my patients, and despite only spending 5 minutes or less preoperatively with them, I feel that during that time, the act of explaining the anesthetic, answering their questions, and doing everything I can to make them comfortable and relaxed at a time where they are likely the most anxious and stressed that they have ever been...I find that in that short time, I do more for the patient than I ever did in a 12 hour shift as an RN even if I was only taking care of one patient that shift. I have yet, in 4 years of working at this facility, to get up and wish that I did not have to go to work. I can assure you that if I were working at any of the hospitals that I worked in for the ten years before CRNA school or all but one of the dozens of clinical sites that I trained in, I would be having to drag my are into work every morning and would be sitting on the stool longing for the moment that I could go home. My point is simply this...there ARE fantastic jobs out there that are fantastic not simply because of the pay or location or reputation or benefits....but they are great because of the culture within the facility. If you are thinking you made a mistake and are thinking of ditching the profession...open your mind to seeking out your CRNA job utopia. Don't limit yourself to any geographic location, and don't exclude anywhere because of the location. Go interview somewhere that offers autonomy and good compensation and interview them while you are there...find a place where employees are happy and tight with each other and make a move. Give that a shot instead of bailing on something you have worked so hard for and instead of sticking with a job that you are not enjoying. As someone who has worked in multiple hospitals in multiple states...trust me when I say that if you are not happy in your job, there is a far greater chance that you are not happy because of where you are working vs what you are doing. Open your mind and do not give up without trying to find the right fit for you.

I was a 36 year old RRT when my wife and I committed to me becoming a CRNA. We had no children, and while we kinda wanted children, we decided to go for it and reassess when I was done. The move to where I was going to attend nursing school and then CRNA school put us in a situation where we were paying rent at two houses while having a mortgage on a third that was on the market. Financially, we could not have been in much worse shape for such an expensive and risky an endeavor; while my RRT GPA was 3.97, my overall was 2.7...I knew going in that I'd have to make all As in nursing school and even then, it would be no guarantee. We had our first child with 4 months left in my CRNA program, and we now have two beautiful boys, I love my job, and we are loving life. The moral to this story is that you are in no way too old to do it. You have the grades to do it. If you truly have the desire to do it, it will not be easy, but you will do it. If you want it to happen, there are plenty of loans out there to help you get through it. If you truly want to do it, commit to it and give it everything you've got, and you can do it. Do not enter into the journey uncommitted, and your dream, although it will seem like a nightmare at times, will not turn into a nightmare!

I graduated from there, but I'm not really sure about specific science requirements. If you meet their requirements...ie. you have a BSN or are and RN with a BS degree, I believe you will have your necessary prereq courses. Most nurses should have taken chems up through biochem or organic, micro, A&P 1&2, statistics etc., so if you meet the degree requirement for application then you should be good to go.

Do not plan on working or having any income from you working while attending school. You might get some people on here that will tell you that they were able to pull it off, but thinking that you can work any and thinking that you can count on any money from your work is a bad way to approach what you are about to do. There are many threads addressing this and the "typical day" as an SRNA on here, and my advice is to read them all, look at the worst case scenario posts, and plan on that. There is ample money available via student loans that will pay your tuition and cost of living expenses based on what your family income is and what your expenses are, and while getting in debt 200K might sound like a nightmare, getting into school and failing out or getting kicked out half way through is much worse. When you are planning your budget and looking at how you are going to pay bills and make ends meet, do so planning on no income from you; if you get in and get through a bit of school and clinicals and find that you can work a couple of days a month here and there, then it will be a bonus. Apply for as much loan money as they will give you, as you are not obligated to take it all, and it will be there if you need it. The program is difficult enough to navigate, survive and thrive in without having the stress of worrying about finances on top of it. Just remember, it is worth doing whatever you have to do to get it done. Good luck!

Good to hear that morificeko. Everything I've seen and heard do not match what you are experiencing in your job. I moved to Indiana after graduating for exactly the opposite reason you want to move south! Maybe after living in the Midwest from birth to adulthood, the southern heat won't wear on you like it does those of us born and raised there. I'm from SC, but unless you live on the NC coast where you can count on the seabreeze or in the mountains where it is ~10 degrees cooler than in the flats, everywhere south of Virginia is swealtering hot and brutal from about mid May-September. I'll take single digits for a couple of months over five months of not being able to walk outside at 3am without being soaking wet before getting to your car. I love the south, but getting carried away by mosquitoes while duck hunting in December suuuuucccckkkssss! I digress...My parents are 75yo and we have given them their first grandchildren... two boys 2y/o and 3months old. I own a great house in Columbia, SC and I would love nothing more than to move back there so my parents and my children (not to mention me) can have as much time together as possible, as they are not getting any younger. Right now, I simply can not afford to move anywhere close to them. I'm making more in my second year out of school than the chief CRNA at one of the better paying facilities that we did rotations at...and he is over 70 and about to retire. He's the only CRNA that I discussed personal salary with, and maybe he was telling me a story, as he knew that I wanted to work there if a position ever opened up. That is SC...NC seems to be significantly lower than SC. Also, do not expect to be doing any PNBs or working autonomously. I'm sure there are exceptions, but I've not seen them. Regardless, you will be signing on for significantly less money compared to what is being offered in the midwest. Money isn't everything, though. I'm taking 5 of my 7 weeks of vacation and working locums for the next two years so that we can be in a position to take that paycut if necessary to move back and be closer to our parents, and I'd do it now...for them...if I could. It's going to be very tough going from autonomy to micormanaged...boo.

GO COCKS! I used to live in Asheville, and being a WW Kayaker married to a beach-gal, I would love to one day return to Asheville or the OBx. As an RT at Mission back in 03-05, I went through the OR to get my required 10 facility intubations during my orientation there; I remember thinking that compared to other ORs I'd been in, that place was full of very tense and unhappy CRNAs. Now that I'm a CRNA, just reading the job postings from Asheville and the surrounding areas, it is obvious that unless you really, really loooovvvvve Asheville or own a home there that you can not get out of, that is not a CRNA friendly place to go. Read between the lines and you'll plainly see..."for a whopping 120...maybe 150K if you are very experienced and work a pile of OT, you can come here, work multiple shifts at multiple facilities of our choosing, all while being micromanaged and treated like a subbordinate by we Godly Anesthesiologists. But hey, you will get 4 weeks of vacation and a week of CME leave...no, no CME money!...to recharge your batteries and rest your aching bunghole! Act fast, because there are obviously too many desperate CRNAs being churned out and Asheville is cool, so these opportunities won't last long. Sincerely, the great and mighty monopolists of Asheville Anesthesia Associates." It really sucks, because it is a wonderful place to live. As far as Raliegh...good grief! I remember looking at jobs around there in the months prior to graduating, and after about two weeks, I quickly skipped past any job posting that stated "raliegh" or "research triangle," as there was never anything posted that was any better than any other job posting in any other state.

10 mg versed and 250mcg fentanyl followed one minute later by 200mg propofol followed 30 seconds later by 50mg rocuronium followed 30 seconds later by 100meq KCL followed 10 minutes later by the morgue staff. Three minutes and the murderer was comfy, unconscious, still, then dead...every time. The price would be minimal. Is this really so difficult?

Maybe this explains why there is currently a "shortage" of glyco that our pharmacy can only get through one "black-market" type of distributor for...get this...$600.00 for a box of 20 1cc vials! There has to be some kind of law being trampled on here. Anyhoo, this news goes a long way toward explaining the current shortage.

The folks who have profited from succs and glyco and neostigmine for all these years are putting their hard-earned money to good use up on the hill. Anyone who thinks otherwise has their head buried in the sand. It is all about the money!

I had become, over the last year, a little more open to putting an LMA in slightly obese patients and pts with well controlled DM, but one of our general surgeons told me about a CRNA here years back that had an obese diabetic aspirate and later die from complications related to the pneumonia that followed. He said he witnessed the lawyer ask a series of questions about the patient that were taken word for word from the LMA package insert. The CRNA got burned. Now, I don't care if it is a three minute cysto case, if the patient is obese or diabetic, they are getting intubated. If it looks to be a difficult airway, I'd rather deal with that up front and in control rather than when the procedure is going on. There are far too many "safe" options available to be going up against what you will face if an LMA anesthetic goes bad on a patient who fits the criteria warned against on that package insert.

Good Goob! Seriously?! There has to be a better and more direct way of preventing the over-production of CRNAs. I know My school, USC SOM adjusts their class sizes according to demand. Maybe we should figure out a way to keep schools from trying to maximize their profits with total disregard to the market. Allowing the sole credentialing body to apply new credentialing standards that in no way, shape, or form enhance the quality of care that is given by CRNAs with the hopes that the new standards somehow keep CRNA overproduction down is a back-asswards way of hoping a problem gets solved. The new standard in no way reduces the number of new grads flooding the market that will drive salaries down; it will only serve to discourage damn good CRNAs with far more experience and ability than those "ready and able" to pass the test from continuing their careers. This new standard is nothing more than a way to drum up more revenue under the false pretense of higher standards. It is total horsehocky. As far as the AANA not caring about ACT practice CRNAs...what do you expect them to do? I left SC, because practicing in SC meant calling a MDA to come in and slam induction agents, leave you to clean up the mess, and calling them to come in and watch you extubate/emerge the patient. ***** If you really want to change that BS, leave. Refuse to be a part of that whole fraudulent bunch of BS. It is the states nursing policy that dictates how CRNAs can practice, and if we stop going along with and supporting the ACT model by our participation in it, things will change. There isn't a hospital administrator in America who wouldn't want to go with an all CRNA anesthesia model if was an option. Eventually, every state will be an opt-out state, because the feds will eventually see the ACT model for the inefficient sham and waste that it is. Until then, quit looking for the AANA or someone else to fix the problem...quit supporting the ACT practices with your participation in them.