IndiCRNA

Yes, there is not nursing shortage and there hasn't been for decades. The "NURSING SHORTAGE!" is just propaganda used to extort tax payer money to create and expand nursing programs with the deliberate goal of creating an over supply of nurses. Its been highly successful, as evidenced by declining RN pay, worsening benefits, and poor working conditions.

If you choose to work in a non-union facility in a right to work state you can be fired for any or no reason at any time. Signs a hospital MAY be a bad place to work: 1) No union 2) in a right to work state, or any southern state 3) Privately owned 4) Religious affiliation 5) MAGNET certification

I've no worries. I have never seen or heard of an MDA who would or could be on hand to do an epidural on a 16 year old Amish girl in active labor at a 12 bed rural critical access hospital like I did tonight. I don't see there ever being enough physician anesthesia providers to service rural and underserved areas. They need us.

I had a 3.66 GPA from my associates in nursing program, 11 years of solid experience in high level ICU, rapid response and critical care transport, then a 3.4 GPA in my online RN to MSN program (I don't have a bachelors degree in anything). I borrowed $80K to pay for family living expenses during the 27 months of my program. My wife worked full time and I worked every Saturday night at my old critical care transport job while in NA school.

I love my job and am super glad I did it. I'm 1/3 owner of an all CRNA practice group. We don't have OR politics. The two general surgeons who I work with regularly are good friends of mine, the rotating specialty surgeons never mess with us. I do two week rotations of bread and butter cases and it gets kinda boring, but I'm off by 3PM, no nights, no weekends or holidays. Then I do a two week rotation of being on call 24/7, but no scheduled cases. I only average 21 hours of work/week when on call, but it's a lot of fun. I get to go to a lot of trauma cases, emergent OB and C-sections & do critical care (usually writing vent orders for the IM and family practice docs) and pain management consulting. Then I'm off for two weeks and the rotation repeats. I live in northern Wisconsin near a gorgeous & friendly lake town, have a house on the lake, 80 acres of hunting land. It's an outdoor recreation lovers dream. Our practice has one absurdly well compensated part time employee, a single mom who does our billing and record keeping from a lap top in her kitchen. I'm VERY well compensated.

Yes! I don't have a bachelors degree of any kind. I have an associates in nursing, then did RN to MSN at University of Arizona that did not include earning a BSN along the way. I was accepted to all four of the CRNA programs I applied to. FWIW I have lots of CNRA friends who have associates in nursing and bachelors degrees in other fields ranging from Music education to forestry and had no problem getting accepted into NA programs.

Never a concern for me. There isn't an MDA practicing within 100 miles of here. All anesthesia in all local hospitals is provided by CRNAs. I'm 1/3 owner of an anesthesia practice group made up of three CRNAs. We provide all the anesthesia, and some critical care medicine & pain management consulting for a 53 bed community hospital and 2 very small rural critical access hospitals. I have no issues getting along with the physicians we work with. I have, in the past, had to suggest one or two stay in their lane. Those were the exceptions.

My old manager tried to make us go from 12's to 8's. I simply refused to do it. I informed her that I was hired to do 12 hour shifts and they were a condition of my employment. Several other key staff did the same. I was 100% ready to hand in my notice if she tried to make me change to 8 hour shifts. She backed down. the key is to: 1) Be a valuable employee who shows up on time for all your scheduled shifts, is a team player, and good nurse. 2) Have a plan to actually leave if the manager does not back down. Start the job search NOW.

In my area there seems to be a bias against NA's who were trained at schools in the Southeast. They have a reputation of not being well trained, in particular for independent practice. Schools here in the upper Midwest usually don't require the GRE but do require a lot of high quality ICU experience. They also have a great reputation for training independent practitioners.

I would be careful using numbers from those buffoons over at BLS. Those are the idiots who are still claiming a nursing shortage.

There seems to be PLENTY of NP jobs out there. Search USAjobs for NP jobs. I would say that the number of jobs available argues against saturation. On the other hand the relatively low pay being offered argues in favor of saturation so I don't know. As for CRNA, the CRNA training will, by 2025 be the same length as medical school (3 years). I think that the (sort of) new 3 year medical schools will compete with the 3 year CRNA programs for the best and brightest candidates.

You appear to be an outstanding candidate. I wish everybody would realize that getting into NA school is EASY! The standards are low for getting in. If you apply to 3-5 schools you are sure to get into 3 or 4 of them. Some of the nurses I see who get accepted I wouldn't trust to take care of a stable DKA patient, much less post op hearts. On the good news side some of the worst nurses who I have seen get accepted didn't make it through. Don't sweat your previous degree.

I see no evidence of that at all. I am regularly contacted by head hunters and recruiters. All of the health systems here in the upper mid west seem to always have openings. My students all have jobs long before graduation, in many cases they are being sponsored and have jobs lined up even before starting NA school. My friends who graduated this year started out at around $140K for those working in the cities and $180K for those working in smaller towns. Here on Allnurses is the only place I have ever heard it said that the field is becoming saturated.

I like all the bright, ambitious, hard working and intelligent young women I get to work with. I love teaching these bright young ladies coming out of college every year eager to learn and excited for their future. I also working with the older, experienced and street wise nurses who have been doing this job for years and have a wealth of great advice and tips to offer. I have (and continue to) learn so much from these ladies. I find that being a male allows me to avoid much of the drama and reduces interpersonal communication barriers that I often see between female nurses. The young nurses are happy to learn from me and the older nurses are happy to teach me.

I only considered programs where all techniques were taught, including all blocks. All 5 of the programs in my area (4 in MN & 1 in WI) offer this. I usually work about 60 hours a week when I am doing my scheduled cases and 21 hours a week when on call. The difference is that we get paid 100% of the compensation for the anesthesia reimbursement. We don't give half of it away to an MDA who (maybe) sticks his head in once a case and is always there to sign the charting as I observed in the ACT facilities I worked in. Another key is that our hospital is rural but part of a much bigger health system. The system rotates their specialty surgeons through. We only have two resident general surgeons. For example every other Tuesday is urology cases and we do them all day with the urologist traveling to our hospital to do cases. Without being part of a larger health system we would not have the volume we do.