Re: Time+money analysis of CRNA vs. AA school
I am sorry you were treated so rudely by a CRNA-I apologize for the entire profession to which I am a member of for the last 20 years. Here are the facts (as I see them). 1). I have worked with a wide range of anesthesia providers-MDs, CRNAs and AAs. In each profession I can honestly say I have worked with horrible ones and excellent ones. My advice to you is simple, if you are under 50 years old-go to medical school and become an anesthesiologist(if you still want to do that after med school-which I doubt you will if you truely love anesthesia-for very few jobs entail nothing more than preops, occasional regionals and giving breaks to those that are giving the actual anesthetic, I.e., CRNAs and AAs). If you have enough intelligence to become an AA or CRNA you have far more intelligence than it takes to become a physician-most med schools, once accepted, will allow med students to take one class at a time during the first 2 years!! I went to Baylor and at that time we took the same classes as the 1st yr med students and were graded the same as they were-most of us did better than them all every time. The reason I suggest med school route is that if you practice for more than 5 years you will get sick of being controlled by a group of physicians that basically do very little-not just how you practice but where you practice will be dictated. Even as a CRNA in solo practice in a rural community the surgeon thinks he knows more about anesthesia than I do-and he's only been practicing 5 years and for the most part is a really easy-super easy surgeon to work with. You will never believe me but I am telling you this anyway (I was a lifeflight nurse, Ccrn,etc for 15 years before I was a CRNA(20yrs exp.) And I am on call 24/7 so don't really have lots of free time to be writing this-but anesthesiologists will never allow AAs to practice independently-they will deny it but they were created by them to exert control over salaries and to try to eliminate CRNAs from the workforce. Because an AA can only practice under an anesthesiologist they would like to get enough AAs to eliminate CRNAs completely-because we can legally practice w/o them as I do. I only wish I had accepted my admission to medical school when I was younger-head my warning-if you have even half a brain GO TO MED SCHOOL. By the way, if that anesthesiologist was really your friend he would have told you to go to med school too-think about it!why didn't he suggest that? Good luck in whatever you choose. An honest CRNA
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