Posted by Joe on October 9, 2008, 11:47 am, in reply to "Re: CRNAs == AAs"
Back to the Nursing pre-req as being easier, I will have to disagree with that statement. Pre-med track does gen 1 and 2 organic 1 and 2 and bio. My Nursing school does the same. The difference in our biology is pre-med does plant and animal systems, cell and molecular and genetics. Nurses do a Basic Biology class which covers the plant and animal systems briefly as well as Genetics, and cell/molecular. Then we do Anatomy and Physiology 1 and 2. The truth is whether you get A's through a Pre-med track and straight A's in an AA program does not make you clinically qualified. That is the purpose of the CRNA requirement of AT LEAST 1 year ICU experience. Anyone interested in statistics could look up the average experience an RN has in an ICU before Anesthesia school is 5 years. Now that is 5 years of applying moderate but difficult concepts to the real world of medicine. The truth of the matter is I am not out to bash the AA profession however if you were a nurse you would understand that a nurse is the first line response for the patient and often our actions are what keeps the patient alive. We experience much of this at our hospital which has a level 1 trauma center, which I worked overtime in and and an advance Cardiac progressive Unit/ICU, which I also provided my services in. Doing the track of the AA is an honorable position however you can not compare yourself to the knowlege not academically, but clinically of a CRNA which is the most important part of practicing anestheisa. The books in school Don't teach how to respond to every situation you learn that when faced with the situations. The reason we have to work in an icu is to develope those skills because critical situations are more likely to arise in that area. Trust me when I say this you do not want to be giving anesthesia and have to learn how to respond to a critical situation with no experience. When I did my clinicals in anesthesia I was actually respected greatly by the anesthesiologist there. At that facility their was also an AA working. example of why clinical experience is critical; The AA and anestheiologist were working a cataract procedure. Case went great and AA Wheeled the patient off to Recovery and back to outpatient. The Patient had a history of Heart attacks. Patient was fine and all of a sudden patient had a heart attack and went into cardiac arrest. I happened to be walking by as the AA and the Nurses started ACLS. They insisted on giving epi. I told them to give atropine and they argued, but they listened and the patient came back. Now could anyone tell me why this happened. In clinical experience as an RN I had to deal with this and learned about more extensivly in my advanced Pharm class in Anesthesia school. The drugs given during surgery caused a colinergic response. First reponse by everyone is to do WHAT THE BOOK(ACLS) SAID, but if you think about it Pharmocologically and clinically you would use atropine not epi, but the inexperience clinically made them act unaccordingly. I know what some of you are going to say, The RN's didn't know either, but that is exactly my point as nurses they didn't know but they are learning it clinically as an RN not as an Anesthesia provider, which is more advanced. Now they can apply that knowledge if they further in the field of advance practice nursing. All in all everyone and their brother can argue about the similarities of CRNA's and AA's, which is not in the same field as no dental assistant is comparable to a dentist even though they may possess similar knowledge. The comparison between CRNA'S and AA's is mostly introduced to take the heat off of the difference between a CRNA and MDA, which is no difference except clinical time practicing anesthesia, but I'm not even getting into that. Understand I respect the purpose of your field, but whether you want to argue that 20% crna's work independently and 80% work under MDA and this is simply politics people. Because on the same side as you. If CRNA's could practice independently the MDA's couldn't bill the patient extra money. Start learning the politics before giving arguments. This country is in bad enough shape we don't need to be comparing apples and oranges, just respect our field(CRNA) and we shall respect your purpose(AA).
