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    Re: Anesthesia Assistants in the Army? Archived Message

    Posted by Dave J on April 8, 2008, 6:19 pm, in reply to "Anesthesia Assistants in the Army?"

    Michael, I talked about this about a year ago in another stream.

    Around 1990, the Department of Defense said it would start using AAs. However what was left unclear was if it would commission them as officers or hire them as civilian contractors.

    Nothing was done with that due to the draw down after the fall of the USSR and the end of the Gulf War. The Army, Navy and Air Force all started closing down military hospitals, turning many of them into out-patient clinics with no surgical capabilities. The three services ended up with an excess of nurse anesthetists and anesthesiologists and many of them retired under the 15 year retirement program. (TERA.) Since they had an excess of anesthesia providers, the decision to use AAs was never acted upon.

    However, the original 1990 policy decision is still in place and if the services once again find they can not get enough nurse anesthetists or anesthesiologists you can be sure they will take action in regards to the already-in-place policy decision regarding using AAs.

    I would think it would take a pretty big need before they do this so I would not count on it happening any time soon. Right now, they are dumping veterans into the VA system and I think you would have much more success getting into that area of federal employment sooner than in the Army.

    Hope this helps.



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