Wanting to apply to CRNA school, but torn between jobs, please help!!

[lulu523]

Hey everyone,

I am planning on applying to CRNA programs within the next year. I need to take my GRE's and I can take my CCRN next month. My ASN GPA is about a 3.5 and my BSN GPA is a 3.7. I have 14 months of experience in a CVICU, with about 9 of those months with heart experience. However, I work at a rural medical center (12 bed CVICU) and in the last few months I have only recovered one or two hearts.. Right now I am driving 45+ minutes to work. There is MICU position open that is about 20 minutes from where I'm located. I am torn between whether I should apply to the MICU position or not. I'm not very happy where I'm at right now and the drive is becoming gruesome. Do I suck it up and make the 45+ minute drive every day for CV experience, or possibly be more happy with a closer job but no heart experience? This MICU still takes sepsis, vented patients, some vascular and thoracic cases, but no hearts. Would this decrease my chances of getting into CRNA school, even if I would stay in the ICU setting. Please help if you can!! Any input would be greatly appreciated, I am very torn on what to do.. Thank you!

[RealNurse419]

I would suggest talking to the schools you are applying to. I didn't have any experience with hearts and was accepted into school. But I was rejected by another because I lacked that experience. I would say if the MICU position is in a faster paced hospital with higher acuity patients, or is a level I trauma center, go for it. I think what got me in is that I had a wide variety of experience with different patient populations. I didn't work specifically for a MICU, SICU, or NICU. If you had an open bed, you got whatever came in the door next. Sometimes, the rural and community hospitals are looked down upon because of exactly what you said: not getting high acuity patients for months at a time.