Years ago, when you went to nursing school, they taught a little bit about all types of nursing, including nurse anesthesia. In some nursing programs you actually got to drop some ether. The Nurse Anesthetists were about the only advanced practice nurse around.
Then the nurse anesthetists formed their own professional association and that pissed off the American Nurses Association, who basically kicked the Nurse Anesthetists out. And the nursing schools changed, while operating room nursing remained part of every nursing program in the nation, not one would teach anything about nurse anesthesia and hardly mentioned the person at the head of the table.
However, as years went by, the other nurses started realizing advanced practice nursing was a "good thing" and more and more different forms of advanced practice nurses appeared. And this time the ANA did not fight it but instead made sure it was the agency that "awarded" the advance nursing certificates according to criteria it developed.
The military saw that as good also, as they could use advanced practice nurses as physician extenders. The Army, Navy and Air Forced opened up a bunch of advanced nurse practitioner programs. And at first it was a great deal for nurses.
But the military started seeing a trend it did not like. There were taking nurses who were in moderate supply, sending them to an ANP program and then put them to work. But then the nurse would work for the required years to pay back the schooling and THEN GET OUT OF THE SERVICE!
Almost as fast as the military could train them, they were losing them. And they were also losing general duty nurses in the process. Each general duty nurse they took from the ward was lost forever as a general duty nurse.
Add to that the nursing shortage during Vietnam and the problem became critical. So critical that President Johnson authorized a draft of 900 MALE nurses to fill the shortage.
The general duty shortage was so bad, something had to be done. So the military branches cut back on the APN programs in order to keep the nurses working on the wards.
Then they went with physician assistant programs. They could take top quality enlisted guys with associate degrees and send them to a program to become a physician assistant. By accepting enlisted people with about 10 years of service, they could ensure that when they got out of the PA program, they would stay around until they retired. The services got the physician extenders they wanted AND they were not cutting their throats on nurses to do it. They had the best of both worlds.
Of course the nurses did not like it as it deprived them of the chance of becoming ANP. But the needs of the services won out. Today for every one ANP in the services there are 5 PAs.
Today the civilian world has caught up to the military.
We do not have enough nurses. There is a major nursing shortage. They are trying to compensate by turning out nurses from TWO YEAR associate degree programs like crazy.
And those nurses are NOT acceptable to the AANA for any Nurse Anesthesia Program. The few that go one to get a bachelors degree or those who do get a bachelors degree to start get paid pretty good pay. And we tell them they have to work for 2-3 years as a critical care nurse, as you did, before they can get into anesthesia school. They work, make money, then they are suppose to stop to go back to school. Add to that the fact that when nurse anesthesia programs became master degree programs, the stipends ended and now to become a CRNA costs a great deal of money.
And for every nurse that goes to anesthesia school to become a nurse anesthetist, it shorts nursing by one nurse. Not the AD nurses that are being turned out in great numbers, the BS nurses that could actually do the most for nursing.
Going back to the experience of the military, there is no logic to take ONE specialty that is in short supply in order to fill another specialty that is in short supply.
As with the military, there is a lot of logic in taking people with degrees and send them to learn anesthesia. The COMMUNITY will still have its nurses doing nursing AND get their physician extenders in the form of physician assistants, AKA anesthesiology assistants.
I do not "hate" my specialty. Due to my years of experience and seeing the same shortage of APNs and the drain on general duty nursing in the military, I can easily see history repeating itself in the civilian community.
AAs are the wave of the future because of the way the RNs and CRNAs handled their educational programs. The shortage of each did not happen until the push for BS nurses and MS anesthetists. It was the choice of OUR profession to "upgrade" and we did so without considering the shortage that would result. No one created the nursing shortage or the nurse anesthetist shortage other than ourselves.
We can increase the number of anesthesia providers WITHOUT causing a worse shortage in Nursing by opening up more programs for AA programs, rather than more schools for nurse anesthetists. And that is what we need to do.
I support ADEQUATE ANESTHESIA COVERAGE FOR THE USA. If that means I have to tell the AANA and anyone who listens that we need AAs, so be it. As a retired military person, I believe duty to nation takes priority over my pocketbook or those of my fellow nurse anesthetists. We need AAs as part of the anesthesia care team.
Now Stanley, work for a few years and find out how things really are in the real world.
Go work in some of the places where surgeons are told they had their cases canceled because there are not enough anesthesia providers that day.
Go work in some of the places where patients are put on a waiting list because there is not enough anesthesia coverage.
Go work in some of the places where MDAs and CRNAs are REQUIRED to work over time because there is no one to relieve them at the end of the day and all the rooms are still running.
Go work some place where there is no float provider and if you have to pee, you either have to use a urinal in the OR or just hold it until your case gets done.
