I'll soon be 45, and am about to graduate from the Radford University (Virginia) BSN program. I'm a USAF veteran (a Signals Intel Officer from 1984-88). The AF nursing recruiter is making me a *very* lucrative offer. Having had to take three years off of life for nursing school, and live on borrowed money for the whole time, things are going to be tight. The AF claims to be offering as much as $57k up front (bonus plus loan repayment), which would take a healthy bite out of what I owe. Walking in the door as a 4-year O-3 offers me a super salary, and based on thumbnail calculations, probably at least a 42% increase over what I'd be making with the job I've been offered locally on a thoracic surgical ICU. That would allow me to keep my current home (which I **REALLY** don't want to sell), as well as keeping up with the loan payments while still living a decent lifestyle. All that is good.
My concerns are these:
1. I'm really only interested in critical care (specifically ICU) nursing. My immediate goal is to get ICU experience to begin pursuing...
2. Grad school. I want to get my CRNA (I have a background as a Licensed Veterinary Technician, and have been trained in and actually done surgical anesthesia on all kinds of animals). Will I be able to steer myself easily into an appropriate critical care setting to get this experience ASAP? I know there are no guarantees of anything in the military, but if I get an assignment to (say for instance) WPAFB, is there a severe enough shortage of critical care RN's to allow me to get in pretty easily to whatever kind of unit I'm interested in? By graduation I'll have close to six months of solid ICU clinical experience, from a summer externship and a clinical practicum (medical/surgical ICU and CCU).
3. Grad school - I know it's handled through AFIT. How hard or easy is it to get a fully funded slot? I can't afford to pay for CRNA school myself anytime soon. I need to get the AF to pay for it, and to pay me my salary while I attend. I have excellent grades, am motivated, and will have no trouble jumping through all the requisite hoops to get in. I just want to know how big the hoops are, and how far they are off the ground, etc.
4. What are the odds that if I were to stay in after CRNA school (it would incur an additional 3-4 year additional commitment after graduation) that I can just be a clinician? I have zero interest in commanding anybody or anything. Been there, done that. I want to manage and command me and my patients. Do military nurses have to go to Squadron Officer School and ACSC and all that silly stuff?
5. What are the other pitfalls I'm not seeing? I know very little about military (specifically USAF) nursing. I'm fairly comfortable about the military in general.
6. What about deployments? Is the USAF deploying people to fun places like Afghanistan? I know that's part of the game, but what are the real odds? Especially for a newly minted RN with little practical experience under his belt?
Any and all information will be most gratefully appreciated as I proceed toward my decision nexus on this. Graduation is in early May, and I need to move ahead smartly if I'm going to do it. I only have less than a 12-month window to get onto active duty (age stuff) without a waiver.
The AF recruiter that I talked to a couple of days ago said that you have to have a full year experience AFTER your NCLEX to count as any previous experience. If you do not, they count you as a new grad and you go in under the Nurse Transition Program. With this program, you choose either Med/Surg or OB. ICU comes after several years of Med/Surg nursing.
I am prior AF, so know what goes on in the AF world. I know about being deployable, etc. The recruiter that I talked to was explaining about being deployable every 15 months. You are deployable for 3 months. If you group gets called up during that 3 months, then you go. If you do not get called up during those 3 months, you are not deployable for 15 more months. Has anyone else heard otherwise?
I do know that many people asked questions about the CRNA program through the AF. The recruiter skirted around the issue. Lots of people want to do pursue that avenue, and there are few spots for it.
The recruiter gave you mostly correct information, but we no longer do 3 month deployments w/ 15month cycles. We are currently doing 4-6 month deployments, mostly 4 months, with an 18 month cycle. If you don't go during that AEF cycle...you can still be deployed in another cycle. They are not really supposed to do that, but they do it all the time to meet readiness needs.
As far as the CRNA application goes it is thru AFIT and the best thing is to ask your healthcare recruiter for a copy of the last nursing call for canidates (it is about 50pgs long) and will explain pretty much everything you need to know about getting into CRNA/ graduate nursing schools/fellowships thru AFIT. There are generally around 20 slots per year for AFIT CRNA school, I have been in over 5yrs, and have yet to see them fill all the slots when their is 20 something seats available. Most people that apply just don't really meet the minimum requirements.
If your ultimate goal is to come into the Air Force and apply to CRNA school then you should go into a large civilian ICU thru critical care residency course right after graduation and gain one year's experience as a new nurse/ICU nurse. About your 9-10 month point go talk to your AF recruiter, but make sure that he/she knows that you will not be coming on active-duty until after your one-year mark. At the one year point in ICU you will be able to come on Active-Duty with your ICU identifier, E designator, then you will be able to go directly into ICU in the AirForce. Now depending on what month you get to your new base, two-three years later you will be able to apply for a long AFIT slot.
FYI: The AF recently changed time on station requirements for CONUS to CONUS moves it is now 4-4.5 years instead of three, and I think there was a resulting increase for CONUS to OCONUS also....3-3.5 years instead of two, but still 2yr TOS required at most OCONUS bases before you can reapply for reassignment.
The whole process is complicated and the recruiters most of the time just do not know much about the medical/nursing field. Most recruiters come from the line side and have jaded view of what the medical field does.
Good Luck! I hope this helps explain things a little better.
Thanks for all the information everyone. I really appreciate it. As with many things in life, it seems like something of a crap shoot on the CRNA thing. I have no doubt that I'd qualify as soon as I get the required experience, so I'm definitely going to ask the recruiter about staying civilian for a year and then applying directly through AFIT. Things are going to be really tight financially for a while (my area is one of the lower paying areas of the country for new grad RNs), but I'll make it one way or the other. The military still seems like a great opportunity in my situation however.
wtbcrna, MSN, DNP, CRNA
5,128 Posts
The recruiter gave you mostly correct information, but we no longer do 3 month deployments w/ 15month cycles. We are currently doing 4-6 month deployments, mostly 4 months, with an 18 month cycle. If you don't go during that AEF cycle...you can still be deployed in another cycle. They are not really supposed to do that, but they do it all the time to meet readiness needs.
As far as the CRNA application goes it is thru AFIT and the best thing is to ask your healthcare recruiter for a copy of the last nursing call for canidates (it is about 50pgs long) and will explain pretty much everything you need to know about getting into CRNA/ graduate nursing schools/fellowships thru AFIT. There are generally around 20 slots per year for AFIT CRNA school, I have been in over 5yrs, and have yet to see them fill all the slots when their is 20 something seats available. Most people that apply just don't really meet the minimum requirements.
If your ultimate goal is to come into the Air Force and apply to CRNA school then you should go into a large civilian ICU thru critical care residency course right after graduation and gain one year's experience as a new nurse/ICU nurse. About your 9-10 month point go talk to your AF recruiter, but make sure that he/she knows that you will not be coming on active-duty until after your one-year mark. At the one year point in ICU you will be able to come on Active-Duty with your ICU identifier, E designator, then you will be able to go directly into ICU in the AirForce. Now depending on what month you get to your new base, two-three years later you will be able to apply for a long AFIT slot.
FYI: The AF recently changed time on station requirements for CONUS to CONUS moves it is now 4-4.5 years instead of three, and I think there was a resulting increase for CONUS to OCONUS also....3-3.5 years instead of two, but still 2yr TOS required at most OCONUS bases before you can reapply for reassignment.
The whole process is complicated and the recruiters most of the time just do not know much about the medical/nursing field. Most recruiters come from the line side and have jaded view of what the medical field does.
Good Luck! I hope this helps explain things a little better.