Physician Assistant Anesthesia Residency

[LT_Oneal_PAC]

20 hours ago, Hope2PA said:

Sadly, what use to be a 3 year ICU RN requirement is no longer a requirement for CRNA.  But you are right, they have the foot hold and are not about to give it up.  Someone suggested they should fight against PA Anesthesia because they did it first.  Yet Family Med NP, APRN, etc have no problem moving into areas previously filled  by PA's, such as surgery. Why should PA and AA's keep of CRNA territory, if interested and have the experience.  Why couldn't an ICU PA be a darn good anesthesia PA or AA. Will not likely happen because money and numbers talk, not ability.  Please don't take that as suggesting CRNA do not have the ability, they just will not allow anyone else with the ability fill the need.

 

20 hours ago, eze8923 said:

That's too bad - yeah I'm not tremendously well versed in CRNA pre-requisites, but I had heard at one point that some sort of prior ICU RN experience was needed and have run into a few RNs in the ICU where I'm at who are looking to pursue CRNA training eventually. Definitely some overlap there into the OR for sure.

You can use my name, it's not going to hurt my feelings. 

The requirement is, and has been for decades, 1 year of acute care experience. 95% of programs, a statistic I made up on the spot by anecdote, determine this to be critical care. The average has been, and continues to be, 3 years. 

Why should PA's and AA's stay out of CRNA territory, if NPs haven't stopped getting into ours? First, AAs were specifically created to disrupt CRNA practice. You'd be malicious against a group that was created by physicians to undermine us, right? This is straw man argument to use NPs in the same context. They were created at the same time as us. They created themselves. Eugene Stead created us.

We all know that a well trained PA could do well giving gas. No one is questioning that. I guess the money and numbers you are referring to are nurses and their lobby. Know that the AANA and the AANA-PAC are completely separate from the rest of nursing. They broke off a long time ago because CRNAs pushed for independence before anyone.They have more money because they join their state and national organizations and donate to their PAC at a rate that should make us feel ashamed.  

The actually reason is there is not a need that we can meet, at least not without extreme prejudice from all sides. We are currently STRUGGLING to practice to our full abilities in specialties we already exist in. I see no reason why we wouldn't have the same fight breaking into anesthesia. Remember, the need is in rural areas where there is not an anesthesiologist. Sometimes these places even have difficulty to even attract CRNAs. AAs, who have proven themselves over and over, are not allowed to practice at anytime when a anesthesiologist is not in the building. So why would legislatures and interested stakeholders be willing to let us get into this area. Likely it would be even harder than AAs because we are unproven in this arena, there is already a provider that meets this need, we require extra training as it is not covered at all in schools now, and we probably would be fighting AAs as well who want to be adopted in their own right. AAs don't want, and have never wanted, the autonomy we seek. Even if we were to successfully get into anesthesia, it would likely be at the detriment to our current OTP/FPA push. Now if the ASA wants to donate some cash and put out a statement that we could practice autonomously after completing a residency in anesthesia, that is a horse of a different color. Never going to happen though.

As far as AAs keeping out of CRNA territory, not my pigs and not my farm. They can do what they want. I just understand the CRNA position. I would understand the AA position better if they were wanting to practice in rural areas where there is actually a need. 

19 hours ago, iconic said:

They all still require 1 year of CC experience at the time of application (3 years is still average at the time of matriculation) plus 3 years of DNP (required by 2022, 91/121 programs already transitioned to it) and 2000 clinical hours. By no means a cheap or fast path. If only other NP programs were as stringent.

^Bingo bango.