i want to be a crna what fields r there for crna.

iLovemyJackRT · Dec 18, 2009

Wow, you need you to seriously, seriously, research this profession much further than you already have.

nurselizk · Dec 18, 2009

Most procedures for which CRNAs give anesthesia are surgical procedures. If you don't like blood, you wouldn't like being a CRNA. At all.

My_brain_hurts · Dec 19, 2009

Sooo, what exactly do you know about CRNAs and what they do? It 'might' be possible to only do sports medicine-related procedures, but even if you found such a gig, it would likely be SURGICAL since CRNAs provide anesthesia. . .and most anesthesia is for OR procedures. . . and if it's sports medicine-related, I'll tell you it will be primarily orthopedic procedures. There is always blood, but worse then the blood is the drilling, pinning, hammering, bone fragments, and the smell of burning bone (because of the drilling).

Are you a nurse yet? You have to be a nurse, and RN, before you can be a CRNA. You will encounter blood in nursing school, and you will encounter it in the ICU, which is also required. You have to be an ICU nurse for at least a yr before you are even eligible to apply to a CRNA program. Do some shadowing to find out if nursing and CRNA is for you. It's a time and money committment and you should be sure it's what you want to do before you get started and find you don't like it.

Do some research, ask lots of questions. Good luck.

PeaceKeepr · Dec 19, 2009

oh my...Maybe you should see if you can shadow a nurse for a day or two to see if you can stand the unpleasentries that await you just in the scope of nursing. A "better" experience might be to shadow a CNA and then RN... Then, if you can handle those, see if you can shadow a CRNA and see if you can stand the unpleasentries of that role. You will have to be able to handle it all to get to CRNA.

I might need to have a heart to heart with yourself...

ngiants08 · Dec 19, 2009

thanks so much i apperciate it, no im not a nurse yett i am a senior in high school and im considering lots of careers nd crna is one of them nd im definatley doing lots of research and thanks for the advice on the job shadowing i will def. do that thanks soo much.

PeaceKeepr · Dec 23, 2009

good luck with you decision, go shadow some of the fields that interest you...

My_brain_hurts · Dec 26, 2009

Great that you are looking at furture careers at this stage. I was very very undecided at your age, and so now at 32 I'm finally feeling like I know what I want. How time flies.

I NEVER thought I'd be a nurse, not so much because of blood but it just seemed like a not very fun/pleasant/mentally challenging job. And also I don't like poop much. . . ok, at all, I don't like poop AT ALL :) But I also didn't know much about nursing beyond TV and the few times I'd visited family in a hopsital or nursing home. And here I am, been an ICU nurse and now in CRNA school. You learn to deal with the poop, or blood, or vomit, or whatever your "icky thing" of choice is. You put yourself in the pt's position --how horrible is it to have a stranger help wipe you after a no. 2?-- and realize that being professional, doing your job whatever it requires even if it's VERY unpleasant is really awesome in itself. If I can make a person feel less uncomfortable, more at ease with what must be done, I think that's really important.

Also, being an RN doesn't mean you have to work in a hopsital. If you want to be a CRNA, well, then yes it does. But there's community nursing, nurses can work for research companies, drug companies, etc. Before I was a nurse I was in research, and a lot of the study monitors that would do site visits were RNs. I had a nursing instructor who said "While you are in school you have to put up with everything. But when you graduate, if you don't like kids, you never have to work with kids, if you don't like poop, don't work where there is poop". . .you get the idea. You have to make it through nursing school, but you have lots of opportunities to work in other areas besides THE HOSPITAL. Nurse practitioners (a lot like physician assistants), nurse midwife (deliver babies), clinical nurse specialists (kind of like NP in some states, nurse education role more traditionally), and CRNA (provide anesthesia during surgeries) are all advanced practice nursing roles if you want to get a master's and do more than you can with just you RN.

Best of luck to you! definitely shadow people, not just in nursing, but in anything that interests you. I wish I had had the guts to shadow different professions way back when. Even if you do it and go "Wow, I NEVER want to do that!" it's still a learning experience. You may find nursing isn't exactly what you want, but it might be better than some other job you thought --before you shadowed-- that you liked. And I know a lot of people who are doing nursing as a second career after they realized it was a steadier job than what they did before.

Okay, again, good luck and have fun while you are deciding what you want to do!