Don't you all find it unbelievably hipocritical that on one hand, the AANA is standing up SCREAMING - "WE ARE DIFFERENT! WE ARE BETTER! PICK ME! PICK ME!" And on the other hand, they are trying to disguise themselves as anesthesiologists and trick patients into thinking they are us. I find that very strange.
Pick a side. Are you better and unique? Then be proud. Stand up and shout it from the rooftops. Highlight your differences. Why are you trying to shroud yourself as us?
If I sell a car that I really feel is better quality, higher value then a TESLA - I'm certainly not going to try and get people to think my car I am selling is a Tesla, I'm gonna be proud of the brand.
I'm sure Ill get slack for this - but I agree with a lot of the AANA statement. How in the world is a supervising model more economical? No way is it more economical. In fact, the only reason I can see ANYONE arguing for a supervising model is so they work less and make a ton more money.
Also, who knows if outcomes are the same. No one knows. I believe outcomes are different, but I can't say that for sure. The only way to prove that would be to make them independent, make a concrete wall between practices - then compare outcomes.
If I were the ASA - I would sit down with the AANA and ask them what they want. If they want independence - here you go. What do you want to be called? Anesthesiologists? Great. Here you go. What do you want physician's to be called - and it has to be extremely distinct from your name. And part of this deal is you have to make sure that all your members are VERY CLEAR on who and what they are.
Finally - how is using AA's the answer? That never made sense to me.
To me - using someone even less trained to do our job, then say - "see, you really need highly skilled people to do this job, therefore we are going to use someone with even less skill to do it... See - CRNA's shouldn't practice independently"...makes no sense. It doesn't make our argument AT ALL.
To me, supervising model only weakens our position. It only levels the playing field. But it does line the pockets of many of you...so I get you fighting like hell to protect it.
If we assume we are a better clinical choice in some clinical situations - then in a system where resources are scarce, and there isn't enough anesthesia clinicians for all the cases, a non-superivosry model will make US much more valuable and highly paid.
However, if there truly is no difference, fighting for supervisory model makes sense.