The requirements to get into a school for Nurse Anesthetists include critical care experience. However, IMO working as an operating room nurse should not qualify.
Yes, the OR is a critical care area, but the operating room nurse is not the one supplying the care. The OR nurse is focused on the procedure being done and the instruments. It is more important to the OR nurse who the surgeon is than any medical condition the patient may have. Some OR nurses can go for years without having to take a blood pressure, check a pulse or do a blood sugar.
In fact, I find most of the OR technicians better in the OR than the OR nurse as that is what they are trained in school to do. Most of the OR nurses today got maybe one day in the OR during school and learned most of what they know on the job. That is not a very good way to train people in such a vital area.
I think one of the major differences in the programs is the CRNA programs have to teach a lot of the same stuff the AAs got in their bachelors program, such as chemistry and physiology.
In regards to experience and background, the CRNA mode is a proven route to safe anesthesia. I can not speak about AAs as I have never worked with them or even met one. However, I do not think the MDAs would let their license or insurance hang on the line if the AAs did not know what they were doing.
I am all for competition in the market place and think having AAs will do nothing but improve the quality of care and help with shortage in providers. I do not support using licensing laws to fence people out so when an AA bill comes up in my state, I will be one of the CRNAs there supporting it.
And DD, if the MDAs make money off the AAs and CRNAs, I could care less. I get paid for what I do, I know how the arrangement works and if I do not like it I can go work elsewhere or find a different career field.