RRNA or SRNA for title, What is your opinion?

Nursing Students SRNA

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I have seen RRNA and SRNA quite often here and just wondered what you all thought of the 2 titles. I like RRNA myself. They way they explained it to us at TCU is that it can ease some pt anxiety when they see SRNA they are thinking oh my goodness a student doing my anesthesia. And if 16months or longer is not a residency I don't know what is. After all we, like some medical residents will be spending plenty of time sleeping at the hospital (maybe not sleeping, but sleep-walking). I think if all programs switched to the RRNA it also looks better on the profession for everyone to be more uniform. Just interested in what everyone else has to say.

I was actually going to stay away from this post but decided to say my part. I really don't think it means squat what title we use while we are in shcool. Whatever one we use (SRNA, RRNA, RNAI) as long as we show up to clinicals prepared and ready to learn. I just hope at the end of my program I am able to be called CRNA.

P.S. I don't think this thread needs to become another CRNA VS DOC thread. That is very very old hat.

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I was actually going to stay away from this post but decided to say my part. I really don't think it means squat what title we use while we are in shcool. Whatever one we use (SRNA, RRNA, RNAI) as long as we show up to clinicals prepared and ready to learn. I just hope at the end of my program I am able to be called CRNA.

P.S. I don't think this thread needs to become another CRNA VS DOC thread. That is very very old hat.

Right on!

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Athomas, I disagree. It is not misleading for a patient to assume a resident has more experience than a nurse anesthetist student ... it may be wrong, but 'misleading' implies a deception by definition. When someone tries to disguise their status as a student, that's a deception, that's misleading.

And I want to make sure I am correct in what you are trying to say. Because patients, when they hear 'nurse anesthetist student' only hear 'nurse' and 'student', you should be allowed to disguise your status as a student in order to get "credit" for your experience? Furthermore, I don't understand how you think it's insulting that they only hear 'nurse' and 'student'. I don't think they're trying to actively reduce your status, they're nervous about being put to sleep and cut into. If they think you're a 'nursing student' then take the 15 seconds required to tell them you long ago graduated from nursing school, have X number of years experience in ICU nursing and now are a graduate level nurse anesthetist student in X year of clinical training - it didn't even take me 15 seconds to type it.

I know, we're all students of anesthesiology, from the med student on their anesthesia rotation to the department chair. When I open up my copy of Barash and read "To All Students of Anesthesiology", I don't think it's just referring to nurse anesthetist students and I imagine, neither does anyone else.

You could just as easily be called an attending, or an astronaut for that matter. It doesn't make it true. But it's just as easy. And do we really want to make this a discussion of the difference in training an anesthesiologist vs. a CRNA? You're wrong, our training is different. I don't even know why you would say something like that.

Finally, thanks for the linguistic lesson Deepz. I disagree. I think by definition, dictionary definitions are somewhat proscriptive. Yes, they are descriptive, they describe what words mean, and therefore LIMIT what those words can be used to describe. You can't call an 'orange' an 'apple' because that's not what an 'apple' is.

I eagerly await your replies.

Really this post is gaining momentum..... to NOWHERE! It is not like any of us have a choice (other than choosing the program that we attend). The program director and staff for each individual program decide what the students will be called during their clinical rotation. If you like it fine and if you don't like it fine, because it is already decided for us. I think that the AANA or COA could step in and make a suggestion or ruling, but there are much larger issues lurking on the horizon. So more power to all CRNA students, residents, interns, apprentices(?), or whatever else you may be called......the main thing is that we are (hopefully) called to deliver an excellent standard of care to ALL of our patients in a kind, compassionate, skillful and knowledgabe manner

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anesres, welcome to our forum. it is important to hear the perspectives of residents, mda's, aa's, etc.

the term resident has a defined meaning, and most people who have seen medical drama on tv are aware of that definition.

tv drama? hollywood's depiction of a hospital environment is a poor argument for what you are trying to point out. lets take a fairly new tv drama (grey's anatomy) and i will show you how misleading tv drama is in the words of a well-written article from http://www.nursingadvocacy.org

"given the media's proven influence on the public, this widely seen premiere's regressive attack on nursing will likely do its part to exacerbate the nursing crisis that is taking lives worldwide..."

"grey's anatomy" is built around intern meredith grey (ellen pompeo), the daughter of a famous surgeon, and four fellow interns starting a long, grueling residency. drill sergeant-like attendings and one vicious senior resident ("the nazi") will train them through calculated abuse. most of the interns, we are gravely informed, will not complete this sacred quest..."

"here are the major problems we see in the show's premiere, "a hard day's night." the episode goes out of its way to endorse the surgeons' contemptuous views of nurses, and to reinforce a vision of nurses as unattractive, marginally skilled subordinates. though nurses do occasionally appear, and even make a few care-related comments at the margins, the show is really a series of intense interactions among its nine physician characters. no nurse is ever named. only surgeons play significant roles in care discussions, and only their actions matter in patient care. the nurses never interact with patients, and thus they provide no patient support...the show has a patient recall a prior hospital visit, after the patient had twisted her ankle doing rhythmic gymnastics: "i didn't get stuck with someone this clueless, and that was, like, a nurse."

"...but the episode's masterpiece of physician contempt is an interaction involving meredith, fellow intern alex karev, an unseen post-op patient, and an older, far less attractive nurse. alex has diagnosed this patient's fever and shortness of breath as pneumonia, and he tells the nurse to start antibiotics. the nurse bleats: "are you sure that's the right diagnosis?" alex brings out the big guns: "well, i don't know, i'm only an intern. here's an idea, why don't you go spend four years in med. school and let me know if it's the right diagnosis. she's short of breath, she's got a fever, she's post-op. start the antibiotics." alex approaches meredith, who has overheard all this, and says: "god, i hate nurses." meredith observes that the patient may not have pneumonia, noting that she could be "splinting" or "have a pe." alex replies: "like i said, i hate nurses." meredith is incensed: "what did you just say? did you just call me a nurse?" alex: "well, if the white cap fits." meredith stalks off. alex tells another intern meredith is "hot." later, alex responds to a page from this same nurse, who tells him that "4b's still short of breath." alex sighs: "look, give the antibiotics time to work." but the nurse actually persists: "the antibiotics should have worked by now." alex starts to lose it: "she's old, she's freakin' ancient. she's lucky she's still breathing... don't page me again."

tv dramas like this are rampant and misleading. i hope they don't influence people's opinion on nurses or docs. the days when the doctor was the auric presence, commanding respect and subservience from all have changed. that golden age of medicine is over. we are now interdisciplinary teams that work for the patient.

if they...look (resident) up in the dictionary they're going to find something like this -

resident - a physician receiving specialized clinical training in a hospital, usually after completing an internship., the american heritage dictionary of the english language, fourth edition, copyright 2000 by houghton mifflin company.

the term "resident" has not been trademarked by the ama (correct me if i'm wrong). words themselves are not static, but evolving. take the word "gay".

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Wow, ether, that's a nasty TV show. I don't watch TV (well, once in a blue moon) and I miss this kind of cultural reference, and that patients are remembering scenes like that when I deal with them.

Obnoxious as it is, at least the last scene shows a nurse concerned about the patient and willing to challenge a physician over it. Unfortunately the scene makes it sound like the nurse is a PITA for doing it, not a professional advocating for her patient.

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Wow, ether, that's a nasty TV show. I don't watch TV (well, once in a blue moon) and I miss this kind of cultural reference, and that patients are remembering scenes like that when I deal with them.

Obnoxious as it is, at least the last scene shows a nurse concerned about the patient and willing to challenge a physician over it. Unfortunately the scene makes it sound like the nurse is a PITA for doing it, not a professional advocating for her patient.

Actually, in opinion polls conducted, the nursing profession and nurses are the most trusted of all...including docs! So I think the public sees these programs for what they are, fiction....

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Wow, ether, that's a nasty TV show.

Some of the material from that website is scary.

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One of my points in brining up the whole MD vs DO issue (and I didn't properly articulate this) was that when DOs came along, they were an "alternative" to alopathic medicine. I'm sure that they dealt with the whole "wannabe" thing. My parents told me that DOs were often seen as not as good as MDs and it seems as though they were viewed in a way similar to how MDs view ANPs now.

I had an MDA tell me that DOs were just as good as MDs, not just in primary care, but as Anesthesiologists. He told me that he knew some DO studnets who he hoped would be anesthesia residents in his program when they graduated. He even suggested that if I wanted to go into Anesthesia (I told him I wanted to be a CRNA) and if I was worried about getting into med school, (I choose CRNA for different reasons btw) to go for a DO.

Now, if docs (and I realize that I'm generalizing based on one) accept that DO school is "easier to get into" than MD school, but still put DOs on a level plain with MDs and above CRNAs, what are the DOs doing to get that respect that maybe APNs need to do? What can we learn from DOs?

The analogies to all the other Allied Heath Doctors (DC, PharmD, etc) are good, but if we want to do the same job as MDs and get the same respect, maybe we should ananlyze how one group (DOs) already did it?

Just my $0.02

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Specializes in Anesthesia.
....when DOs came along, they were an "alternative" to alopathic medicine. .....

Bryan my friend, please don't take this the wrong way, as I do tend to be overly blunt, but it seems as if you burn up an *awful* lot of energy speculating, speculations on this and on that, energy that could more profitably be invested in your work or in doing your own research. Here's a piece of easily available research on the history of DOs:

http://www.aacom.org/om/history.html

Just do it, as the slogan goes.

deepz

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anesres-

"misleading" implies no deception - whether you infer it or not is your choice - misleading is just what it states -

a student is understood to be "new" to an experience, or without experience - i dare say that most SRNA's have more clinical experience (with patients, IV's, drips, drugs and disease processes) than any resident around. - and i emphasize the word "most"

anesthesia "residents" and "student" nurse anesthetists alike are students of anesthesia - why should one or the other monopolize a title if it is truly not that meaningful??

as for explaining to patients - if you thoroughly read the previous posts - it is very clear that my program utilizes the word student - and when the opportunity arises I accomplish all the teaching that I can possibly fit into a pre-op time period - starting off with Nurse Anesthetists being the forefounders of anesthesia as well as the fact that the majority of anesthesia is actually provided by them. :)

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Wow, this is getting nowhere. I am an RRNA/SRNA. I dont care what the hell they call me. I look at the patient introduction as an opportunity to educate my patients that more anesthesia is provided by CRNAs than MDAs and AAs combined. I introduce myself as a Resident Registered Nurse Anesthetist then I joke and say "now that that is out of the way, I have been a critical care RN for 11 years and am now in graduate training in anesthesia. I am yet to have one patient "freak out". It is all in presentation and professional approach. Emphasis on "working with....... "

Now for my pet peeve.......comparing a NP to a CRNA and their education is rediculous. I could have become a NP going to evening classes 2-3 nights a week for 18 months! More graduate nursing classes?? Not a chance we are all aware of the importance of nursing theory. I am in 30 months of fulltime+ anesthesia school, residency whatever you like to call it.

In ending the emphasis should be placed on Nurse. Anesthesia residents deserve the respect of being MD's but they are anesthesia students just as SRNA does for being a RN.

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In the facility where I work, we share a CRNA program with a medical doctor anesthesiology program. We are prohibited from calling SRNAs residents (even in the residency portion of their training) because this was deemed confusing to patients. We refer to nurse anesthesia trainees as SRNAs.

Remember that a patient has a right to know who you are (and you are a student or a trainee, if you like). I also introduce my students as "nurses training in our nurse anesthesia program". This conveys (sometimes, depending on the patient) that the person is indeed a registered nurse with an earned degree (and not a student nurse). Hope that helps.

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