What Does a BSN have to do with CRNA?

yoga crna · Jun 15, 2006

If your goal has always been to be a CRNA, you must follow the requirements to qualify for the educational programs. As others have said, competition is very strong for admission and only the best and the brightest and those with the best grades will be selected. When you start your required critical care experience, you will quickly find how how much you did or did not learn in your basic education.

My advise--take some advanced level science classes, like biochemistry, physics and physiology. By getting good grades in those subjects and showing that you were motivated to take them will make you more competitive.

I got a sense that you may not like patient care. If that is so, then anesthesia is probably not the field for you. It is all patient care in some of the most stressful situations you can imagine.

There are no shortcuts to becoming a nurse anesthetist. Nor should there be, anesthesia is too difficult and stressful--you have to know what you are doing and why you are doing it.

yoga crna

bonesrn · Jun 15, 2006

Geez..relax...as a previous poster stated hlaf of what you learn in a BSN program is BS...I did not mean that all BSN nurses were bad...I have great respect for anyone who furthers their education. However, just because you have an advanced degree does not make you a better nurse than someone with a diploma or ADN. Some nurses would love to go back to school and simply can't..that doesn't mean that they don't have a desire to better themselves or that they are on the same level as a plumber! Most of what you do in nursing is on the job training..putting in your time at the bedside..I believe that being a good, caring person is the best requirement for becoming a nurse..you can teach anyone the technical stuff but you can't teach them to have a heart..to care..etc...so I apologize to anyone who took offense to my comment..I simply meant that most of what you learn in the BSN program is simply that BS...and I hear that from BSN nurses all the time.

EricJRN, MSN, RN · Jun 15, 2006

that doesn't mean that they don't have a desire to better themselves or that they are on the same level as a plumber!

What's wrong with plumbers? :lol2:

gr8rnpjt, RN · Jun 15, 2006

I have just finished my BSN and I was thinking of someday working on an going back to an CRNA.
To tell you the truth I don't feel like I learn much of anything. I learn a couple some Med-Surg clinical skills and some disease knowledge, but not much more. I have been reading about CRNAs for years and I cannot even understand why I had to get a BSN to get CRNA.
They seem like apples and oranges, which would make me happy because I didn't enjoy my nursing courses they seemed more like BS then BSN courses.

There is something about this post that strikes me as being very odd...

sunnyjohn · Jun 15, 2006

What's wrong with plumbers?

Shoot, a decent plumber can make more scratch than a nurse.

yoga crna · Jun 15, 2006

I have just finished my BSN and I was thinking of someday working on an going back to an CRNA.
To tell you the truth I don't feel like I learn much of anything. I learn a couple some Med-Surg clinical skills and some disease knowledge, but not much more. I have been reading about CRNAs for years and I cannot even understand why I had to get a BSN to get CRNA.
They seem like apples and oranges, which would make me happy because I didn't enjoy my nursing courses they seemed more like BS then BSN courses.

Education, at the higher levels is about how much motivation the student puts in to learning and how dedicated they are to the life long pursuit of knowledge. To qualify for anesthesia school and later be a CRNA, you must have intellectual curiosity and enough interest to constantly read and learn.

My concern is that, since you apparently did not get much out of your nursing education you will not grasp the analytic process sufficiently to apply the book knowledge to clinical practice in anesthesia. That is what happens at the master's degree level.

Also, not everything is "BS" and it would probably be to your advantage to not use such terms if you are interested in being a professional.

yoga crna

Bruce RN · Jun 15, 2006

Education, at the higher levels is about how much motivation the student puts in to learning and how dedicated they are to the life long pursuit of knowledge. To qualify for anesthesia school and later be a CRNA, you must have intellectual curiosity and enough interest to constantly read and learn.
My concern is that, since you apparently did not get much out of your nursing education you will not grasp the analytic process sufficiently to apply the book knowledge to clinical practice in anesthesia. That is what happens at the master's degree level.
Also, not everything is "BS" and it would probably be to your advantage to not use such terms if you are interested in being a professional.
yoga crna

Although I would consider this to be excellent advice to the OP from an actual CRNA, I can't help but feel the need to remind all of you who are critical of the original inquiry that this is coming from a brand new grad, not one of your seasoned vet peers, and to keep that in mind when responding.

I know that when I was a brand new grad, I was very unsure of how much I'd learned in my basic nursing program and equally unsure about how I was going to put it all together and apply it "in the real world" of hospital nursing.

Even though I'd made it through graduation, jumping through hoops from one clinical rotation after another, reading tons of chapters and passing a multitude of exams, I still wasn't sure if my nursing program adequately prepared me for the RN role and I had much anxiety about how well I'd perform as a nurse.

A new grad is not yet at a stage where they are able to truely realize and appreciate what they've learned and it is very common for them to have doubts about how much they've actually learned and/or how useful this new knowledge will be to them.

Certainly we all agree that to bipass the BSN, dismissing it as inapplicable to CRNA education, and make CRNA programs direct entry associate degree programs, or allow anyone with a bachelors in anything, be it business or arts, to enter a CRNA program, would be unimaginable.

The OP, IMHO, was just attempting to make sense of, and find a connection between basic nursing education and CRNA level education from where they are standing right now as a new grad BSN.

carolinapooh, BSN, RN · Jun 15, 2006

You are right - many nurses without BSNs are damn good nurses. But a Masters program requires a baccalaureate degree. Plain and simple. BSN school is not supposed to teach you how to be a good CRNA. That is what CRNA school is for.
As far as the RN = real nurse comment...well, I think that was just uncalled for. A good nurse will be a good nurse, regardless of how they were trained. Try supporting each other instead of cutting on someone's educational background.

Thank you. Couldn't have said it better myself.

dfk, RN, CRNA · Jun 16, 2006

Hell.. Even A Bad Plumber Can Make More Than A Nurse.. Lol

Ekklesia · Jun 16, 2006

A new grad is not yet at a stage where they are able to truly realize and appreciate what they've learned and it is very common for them to have doubts about how much they've actually learned and/or how useful this new knowledge will be to them.

Heh, after 2 years of pre-reqs I ask myself this stuff every day, LOL. I'm trying to figure out what to retain and what to dismiss. A good example of non-relevant knowledge would be my upcoming class, FIA 102 (Fine Arts: Paleolithic to 14th century). I guess it'll just help to keep my GPA up where it needs to be.

Certainly we all agree that to bypass the BSN, dismissing it as inapplicable to CRNA education, and make CRNA programs direct entry associate degree programs, or allow anyone with a bachelors in anything, be it business or arts, to enter a CRNA program, would be unimaginable.

Yeah, but what about my friend who majored in theater and got accepted to med school?

Yeah, he took the required courses (o-chem, etc) but he majored in...THEATER!

WVUturtle514 · Jun 17, 2006

When I graduated from nursing school and started in the ICU I remember thinking to myself "Did I really go to school for 4 years to come out knowing nothing?" There were times where I honestly felt like I didn't learn anything worthwhile in nursing school (looking back I realize this wasn't the case).....anyways, what I'm trying to say is that I learned 99% of what I know through experience on the unit, not through books or nursing classes. The BSN is designed to give you a base of knowledge for you to build on during your clinical practice. No one comes out of nursing school knowing how to be a nurse.....it is something that is learned through experience, experience and more experience.

That being said, I would have been scared out of my wits to have stepped into the OR as an SRNA without having the ICU experience that I have. There are some days that I feel that even my two years in the ICU wasn't enough and I wish I would have worked a couple more. I think that critical care experience is an essential part of becoming a CRNA, because like someone else said, in order to be a good CRNA, you must be a good RN first.

rn29306 · Jun 17, 2006

When I graduated from nursing school and started in the ICU I remember thinking to myself "Did I really go to school for 4 years to come out knowing nothing?" There were times where I honestly felt like I didn't learn anything worthwhile in nursing school (looking back I realize this wasn't the case).....anyways, what I'm trying to say is that I learned 99% of what I know through experience on the unit, not through books or nursing classes. The BSN is designed to give you a base of knowledge for you to build on during your clinical practice. No one comes out of nursing school knowing how to be a nurse.....it is something that is learned through experience, experience and more experience.
That being said, I would have been scared out of my wits to have stepped into the OR as an SRNA without having the ICU experience that I have. There are some days that I feel that even my two years in the ICU wasn't enough and I wish I would have worked a couple more. I think that critical care experience is an essential part of becoming a CRNA, because like someone else said, in order to be a good CRNA, you must be a good RN first.

Very well said.