Question from an Undergraduate nursing student..

[ginamart]

Currently an UG in nursing school entering my senior year.. I am thinking about participating in an independent study and I was wondering if any CRNA's have any insight on any topics that they believe need to be further researched?

Basically my professor said that I need to come up with a subject of interest within the field of anesthesia. Essentially what I'm asking is, is that are there any areas with in anesthesia that are lacking research or you think should be further researched? Any thoughts or information that you can provide is welcomed and greatly appreciated!

[sweetdreame, BSN, RN]

Why don't you do a research project regarding quality of care of CRNAs (independent), CRNAs (ACT setting) or MDAs alone. Is there a difference? The ASA claims there is, the AANA claims there is not!

I'm not sure the depth of this project, I'm sure it is just a simple research project vs. a lengthy capstone? And by research you probably mean more like review of literature? Or are you going to be doing actual clinical research yourself?

Are you looking for more of a clinically-based project (use of certain techniques, drugs, etc.)?

[UnfinishedSentenc]

I'm an icu rn who will be soon applying to crna school, and I did a similar research project my last year, probably for similar reasons. It is difficult to do clinical research or to view patient medical records, even for grad students w/ rns, let alone a single undergrad. If you're trying to do something like that in two semesters, good luck. What I did was research on "icu nurses' attitudes towards visitation hours in icus". I made a questionnaire, gave it to everyone at my ACLS class, then got permission to distribute it to other ACLS classes, then made a contact through that and took it to several ICUs one night. Incidentally, it was because of this that I started volunteering in the ICU that hired me when I graduated. I gave a packet with latest research from AACN to every nurse that filled out a questionnaire. lol nurses hate visitors but the research says they help all outcomes, so there's an interesting disparity in my research b/t nurse's opinions and EBP. This kind of research project could be doable for you without a crazy amount of work, eg approaching crnas with questionnaires. One other word of advice. When my prof put in the class for my transcript, she used so many words for the course title that it was truncated on my transcript as 'BEST PRA FAM SU'. I don't even know what 'su' stands for. I would have much rather had 'BEST PRA ICU NUR' or something that anybody can make some semblance of. So the shortened class name that appears on your transcript could be worth going over with your prof. Good luck!