Second-degree, Nurse Corps, CRNA school, and everything in between

phlnurse10 · Feb 2

Hi! I am looking for insight on everything you mentioned. I am starting my ABSN program in April and have hopes of becoming a CRNA. I am very interested in the nursing corps scholarship and plan on applying when this years application opens up. My concern is meeting the fulfilling the service requirement while gaining the ICU experience needed for a CRNA program. Can you tell me more about your experience finding a location that fulfilled the service requirement and provided ICU experience? If you feel comfortable, I would love to know the city where you completed your service. Any info you could provide would be SO helpful. Thank you!

IG-11, BSN · Feb 6

phlnurse10 said:

Hi! I am looking for insight on everything you mentioned. I am starting my ABSN program in April and have hopes of becoming a CRNA. I am very interested in the nursing corps scholarship and plan on applying when this years application opens up. My concern is meeting the fulfilling the service requirement while gaining the ICU experience needed for a CRNA program. Can you tell me more about your experience finding a location that fulfilled the service requirement and provided ICU experience? If you feel comfortable, I would love to know the city where you completed your service. Any info you could provide would be SO helpful. Thank you!

Hi phlnurse10, I am glad you're looking into it! It's a great track. First of all, good luck in your ABSN studies. I think you will find it a little more focused and practically applicable than your first bachelor's degree.

To answer your question: I strongly encourage you to apply for the scholarship program. It is a low acceptance rate, so make sure you take the time to really develop your personal essays. Also, have an honest conversation with yourself - ensure that working with underserved communities is something you are drawn to personally. That said, there is plenty of opportunity on the other side to get ICU experience. I was able to step directly into a critical care unit at a major area hospital post-graduation, and I did not feel that my Nurse Corps obligations were too limiting. If you are set on being in one specific city, you would likely be frustrated with it. But if your focus is more regional (I.e. you want to live and work on the West Coast, or New England, etc.) then I think you will be happy with your options.

The way it works is the HRSA assigns a grade to each facility's primary care, mental health, and dentistry needs. In my year, I believe is was a score of greater than 14 in primary care or mental health that qualified a facility. I would speak to scholarship program staff to investigate how/if that has changed, as this was over 5 years ago.

Once you are accepted and complete your education, the program staff are really good at providing guidance that can help you identify facilities that #1 meet the needs of underserved communities while #2 also accomplishing your professional goals.

Short version: You can find a job in an ICU immediately post-grad if you are flexible on the specifics, and if you do the standard hard work to get there that any new grad intent on ICU must do.

Let me know what you decide, and good luck! I am happy to help answer more questions if they come up.

phlnurse10 · Feb 20

IG-11 said:

Hi phlnurse10, I am glad you're looking into it! It's a great track. First of all, good luck in your ABSN studies. I think you will find it a little more focused and practically applicable than your first bachelor's degree.

To answer your question: I strongly encourage you to apply for the scholarship program. It is a low acceptance rate, so make sure you take the time to really develop your personal essays. Also, have an honest conversation with yourself - ensure that working with underserved communities is something you are drawn to personally. That said, there is plenty of opportunity on the other side to get ICU experience. I was able to step directly into a critical care unit at a major area hospital post-graduation, and I did not feel that my Nurse Corps obligations were too limiting. If you are set on being in one specific city, you would likely be frustrated with it. But if your focus is more regional (I.e. you want to live and work on the West Coast, or New England, etc.) then I think you will be happy with your options.

The way it works is the HRSA assigns a grade to each facility's primary care, mental health, and dentistry needs. In my year, I believe is was a score of greater than 14 in primary care or mental health that qualified a facility. I would speak to scholarship program staff to investigate how/if that has changed, as this was over 5 years ago.

Once you are accepted and complete your education, the program staff are really good at providing guidance that can help you identify facilities that #1 meet the needs of underserved communities while #2 also accomplishing your professional goals.

Short version: You can find a job in an ICU immediately post-grad if you are flexible on the specifics, and if you do the standard hard work to get there that any new grad intent on ICU must do.

Let me know what you decide, and good luck! I am happy to help answer more questions if they come up.

Thank you so much! The application opens on March 5th, so I have my fingers crossed!

Neri M · 2024-12-11T14:57:07Z

Hello,

I am a BSN student now and a Nurse Corps Scholarship Award recipient. I am looking to pursue CRNA in the future after fulfilling the requirements of critical/intensive care and my scholarship obligation. I was wondering if you re-applied for and received the Nurse Corps Scholarship for your CRNA Education. I've read that once you have been a recipient before, it's highly likely to get chosen again for further studies like obtaining DNP, etc..