Should I reveal CRNA plans to hospital?

Nursing Students SRNA

Published

Hello,

I am starting my Nursing education with the eventual hope to be accepted into a CRNA program. I'm curious if hospitals are accepting of the fact that an RN is trying to get experience to apply to a CRNA program as opposed to just working as an RN in their hospital.

Any advice or experiences with this?

Thanks!

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Specializes in Cardiac, Pulmonary, Anesthesia.

For the love of all that is holy, keep it to yourself when applying for jobs, working at your job, basically at all times at the hospital. It usually brings nothing but grief. Only bring it up when you ask for a recommendation (hopefully by that time you know who you can ask) and when turning in your letter of resignation after you are accepted.

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Specializes in ICU.

Agreed with the above. Don't tell anyone. But, I wouldn't lie about it either. I just interviewed for a job recently and they asked me if I wanted to go back to school and my words were "it's something I've thought about, and higher education has always been something I've been interested in, but right now, I'm just looking to get settled somewhere full time." If they specifically ask you about NA school, I'd give a similiar response, don't flat out lie, but at the same time don't shout out yeah I'd to do my year and be out. If a someone with all the same qualifications were applying as you, and that person didn't want to go to NA school but you made it clear you wanted to, odds are the other person would get hired. It's competitive and cruel out there.

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Specializes in ICU.

totally agree, My boss in the St Louis area turned down two well qualified RN's because they mentioned they were looking to get into our ICU for school.She told me it costs too much to train somebody and have them leave in just a few years.

According to her about $75,000 for training by the time you take a 12 week internship and classes, the preceptor pay ect.

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It's definitely the kiss of death in most interviews, at least in my area. Once you get hired though, it depends where you work and what the culture is like. Half the nurses on my unit are taking advanced courses in prep for NA, NP, MBA, MPH, or whatever their interest is. Several talk openly about plans for NA school. Our manager happens to support higher education, plus many of the nurses never wind up following through - we have several who have been on the unit for over a decade. I'm still fairly new, so I don't talk about it yet. It's important to me that I become competent in my ICU before moving on.

I believe that's what I said when I interviewed as well: "Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?" "Well, I do eventually plan on continuing my education. I'm not 100% sure which direction I will head, and for the moment I'd like to focus on becoming an excellent critical care nurse. I'm hoping that getting great experience here will help me to make that decision down the line." Later on in the interview, it was time for me to ask questions. One that I asked was what qualities tend to help new grads become successful in critical care. She responded that you need to be incredibly focused on what you're learning every day, willing to do outside study, etc., and "the poorest ICU nurses I see are those who are just here to do their one year before applying for CRNA school." Gee was I glad I hadn't mentioned that as even a possible goal of mine.

Anyways, good luck with NS and beyond!

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