'Here's Why Nurse Anesthetists Earn Over $150,000 A Year'

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hahaha, three years of working as a BSN counts in his nine years of training?
 
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sb247 said:
hahaha, three years of working as a BSN counts in his nine years of training?
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I saw that too... How can anesthesiologist compete with this propaganda machine?
 
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Anesthesiologists >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> nurse anesthetists
 
"As an undergraduate, he'd been waffling between going to medical school and becoming a chiropractor..."
 
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poor anesthesiologists
 
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Not really.
 
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sb247 said:
hahaha, three years of working as a BSN counts in his nine years of training?
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  • four years getting a bachelor's degree in nursing from Northeastern University, three years of critical care training in the intensive care unit at Boston Medical Center, and nearly two and a half years getting his master's in nurse anesthesia at Northeastern University/Tufts Medical Center.
Yes, sadly.
 
"'It's hard when you have a job you love and someone you don't even know is saying they could do your job better,' Del Grosso says, adding that both physicians and nurses provide great anesthesia care."

The irony is palpable.
 
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Damn, the nurses are good at these low blows.

Why do physicians always have to stay above the fray? We need to roll up our sleeves and start taking names. Then again, maybe all those mandatory inter-professional sensitivity training courses actually ended up castrating us after all.
 
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Jabbed said:
"'It's hard when you have a job you love and someone you don't even know is saying they could do your job better,' Del Grosso says, adding that both physicians and nurses provide great anesthesia care."

The irony is palpable.
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Funny bc NPs are saying that about physicians.
 
"While anesthesiologists say the process is safer when there's a physician involved, nurse anesthetists point to a recent study finding that the care they provide is just as good. "

Actual statement from the paper they quote: No definitive statement can be made about the possible superiority of one type of anaesthesia care over another. The complexity of perioperative care, the low intrinsic rate of complications relating directly to anaesthesia, and the potential confounding effects within the studies reviewed, all of which were non-randomized, make it impossible to provide a definitive answer to the review question.
 
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Also...the "recent study" quoted by the article is just a literature review that quotes other studies.....studies that don't say CRNAs are safer at all since all of the CRNAs in the study were supervised by docs ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12220208)

journalists are horrible at fact checking
 
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I've been told by many physicians that mid level providers are the future of healthcare and some even deterred me from pursuing med school for this reason. PAs/NPs taking over primary care, CRNAs taking over anesthesiology, and in some ERs, PAs will see patients instead of doctors (even critical/coding patients!).
Healthcare is definitely becoming more business oriented rather than people oriented, and that's sad.
 
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NotAnOperator said:
I've been told by many physicians that mid level providers are the future of healthcare and some even deterred me from pursuing med school for this reason. PAs/NPs taking over primary care, CRNAs taking over anesthesiology, and in some ERs, PAs will see patients instead of doctors (even critical/coding patients!).
Healthcare is definitely becoming more business oriented rather than people oriented, and that's sad.
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PP Psych here I come.
 
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Rirruto said:
Compare the doctor who is casually relaxing with headphones vs. the focused, hardworking CRNA stock photo.
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The docs are the only ones out of that whole list that have that kind of depiction. What a BS article.
 
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DermViser said:
  • four years getting a bachelor's degree in nursing from Northeastern University, three years of critical care training in the intensive care unit at Boston Medical Center, and nearly two and a half years getting his master's in nurse anesthesia at Northeastern University/Tufts Medical Center.
Yes, sadly.
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Hilarious.
"More than nine years of study...Three years of critical care training in the ICU at Boston Medical Center"
Oh you mean that time when you worked as a RN in an ICU? I didn't know your job counted as "study time".
 
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The original Business Insider article is funny too. The job of "medical school professor" comes in 7th...wut? And yeah why the f are all the doctors sitting around sleeping with their headphones on? Was this article written by a CRNA?

And apparently orthodontics is a medical specialty...wtf mate. I think they just hired some bum they saw on the way in to the office to write this article for them.
 
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It's articles like these, lacking any physician counterpoint, that seem to suggest there's been a wussification of physicians in recent years.

Speaking of wussy physician behavior, does anyone else's hospitals have ED docs wearing nurse-like scrubs these days? I've seen it now in 5 different hospitals, ED docs wearing these goofy dark blue scrubs with their names embroidered on them. They look like friggin triage nurses for cryin out loud. What's becoming of us?

$(KGrHqF,!o0FG05sZ!JsBRy,zwy+mg~~60_35.JPG
 
NontradCA said:
Don't you have a rural clinic in South Dakota to match into?
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I probably have a better chance of matching downstate NY.

I couldn't point out South Dakota on a blank map, LOL!
 
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KinasePro said:
It's articles like these, lacking any physician counterpoint, that seem to suggest there's been a wussification of physicians in recent years.

Speaking of wussy physician behavior, does anyone else's hospitals have ED docs wearing nurse-like scrubs these days? I've seen it now in 5 different hospitals, ED docs wearing these goofy dark blue scrubs with their names embroidered on them. They look like friggin triage nurses for cryin out loud. What's becoming of us?

$(KGrHqF,!o0FG05sZ!JsBRy,zwy+mg~~60_35.JPG
Click to expand...
1393802708360.jpg
 
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DermViser said:
Too bad there are Mental Health NPs and Clinical Psychologists (that have Rx privileges in some states).
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That's ok, the drug seekers and sociopaths will be more likely to seek them out.
 
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KinasePro said:
It's articles like these, lacking any physician counterpoint, that seem to suggest there's been a wussification of physicians in recent years.

Speaking of wussy physician behavior, does anyone else's hospitals have ED docs wearing nurse-like scrubs these days? I've seen it now in 5 different hospitals, ED docs wearing these goofy dark blue scrubs with their names embroidered on them. They look like friggin triage nurses for cryin out loud. What's becoming of us?

$(KGrHqF,!o0FG05sZ!JsBRy,zwy+mg~~60_35.JPG
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Maybe the doctor scrubs were sold out at their stores? :p

Green, light blue, and gray seem to be the big 3 "doc scrubs.". I've seen some docs wear pink/purple scrubs too.
 
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calvnandhobbs68 said:
The original Business Insider article is funny too. The job of "medical school professor" comes in 7th...wut? And yeah why the f are all the doctors sitting around sleeping with their headphones on? Was this article written by a CRNA?

And apparently orthodontics is a medical specialty...wtf mate. I think they just hired some bum they saw on the way in to the office to write this article for them.
Click to expand...

The comments section is full of angry CRNAs offended by the description of their job offered in the article.
 
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CherryRedDracul said:
The comments section is full of angry CRNAs offended by the description of their job offered in the article.
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People who do these article apparently think it only takes around 15 minutes to become a CRNA.
 
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Mr. Hat said:
Yeah, well in that case, when I finish residency I will have 18 years of study. 4 years of undergrad, 7 years as an EMT, 4 years of med school, 3 years of residency. Or can I add in my 5 years in the business world too? Lol. What a doofus.
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Why not.

Im rockin the 24 yr training schedule.

4 yrs undergrad, 6 yrs medic, 2 yrs post bacc, 3 yrs grad school, 4yrs med school, 3yrs residency, 2yrs fellowship.

Holla.
 
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http://allnurses.com/pre-crna-inquiry/crna-vs-anesthesiologist-272072.html
Looked this up, and it seems like a CRNA mirror of this thread.

I mean this in the sincerest way, but I really can't stand all the bias from both sides of the coin. Seems to be, everyone claims from anecdotes or insecurities that their field is the better one. I'm quite tired of this, has anyone actually done a study to measure the efficacy of CRNAs and MDs in clinical settings? I'd very much like to see an unbiased article or paper on this before I take any stance on the matter.

I'm just damn frustrated with all the strong opinions on both directions, if an experienced CRNA can really do as much as an MD with less training and less pay, I think the flaw is in our own MD education system. I'd like to see hard evidence that the extra years of training are translating to the job itself and that MD ansethesiologists are filling niche that CRNAs can't. If CRNAs are really doing just as good a job as anesthesiologists with shorter training, then the problem is on the MD training end IMHO. Not saying this is the case, because I really don't know, since both ends seem to be saying opposite things.
 
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zeppelinpage4 said:
http://allnurses.com/pre-crna-inquiry/crna-vs-anesthesiologist-272072.html
Looked this up, and it seems like a CRNA mirror of this thread.

I mean this in the sincerest way, but I really can't stand all the bias from both sides of the coin. Seems to be, everyone claims from anecdotes or insecurities that their field is the better one. I'm quite tired of this, has anyone actually done a study to measure the efficacy of CRNAs and MDs in clinical settings? I'd very much like to see an unbiased article or paper on this before I take any stance on the matter.

I'm just damn frustrated with all the strong opinions on both directions, if an experienced CRNA can really do as much as an MD with less training and less pay, I think the flaw is in our own MD education system. I'd like to see hard evidence that the extra years of training are translating to the job itself and that MD ansethesiologists are filling niche that CRNAs can't. If CRNAs are really doing just as good a job as anesthesiologists with shorter training, then the problem is on the MD training end IMHO. Not saying this is the case, because I really don't know, since both ends seem to be saying opposite things.
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Here's an idea. There shouldn't be CRNAs at all. All patients deserve a physician and that is an anesthesiologist.
 
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DermViser said:
Here's an idea. There shouldn't be CRNAs at all. All patients deserve a physician and that is an anesthesiologist.
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If physicians bring the best quality of care (which I'd like to think they do because of the extra years of training), then I absolutely agree with you.

But, when multiple CRNAs are claiming they are doing just fine unsupervised, I'd just like to see some data to negate or support those claims.

I'm not disagreeing with anyone here, but I'd like to know how anesthesiologists are actually providing better care. Most of my google searches comparing CRNAs and MD just bring about threads like the one I linked and this one here, it's all too biased to know the truth. If you know any reliable articles or papers that goes into why anesthesiologists are still superior to CRNAs, I'd happily read it.

Again, I've never worked as either or been on floors, I know jack squat about what it's really like up there. I'm sure you can give some insight on this as you're already working in clinical settings and probably had some real experience with anesthesiologists and CRNAs, and how the two differ. But that's not something I have. I'm really not arguing with anyone, I just don't understand the difference between the two. They seem to do most of the same things on an average day.

And you're right, in an ideal world there would be no CRNA, but they're here now for various reasons. Question is..are their arguments valid?
 
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Wtf anesthesiologists only make $235k? I thought it was closer to $350k

More lies to further their agenda
 
chillaxbro said:
Wtf anesthesiologists only make $235k? I thought it was closer to $350k

More lies to further their agenda
Click to expand...

Why would you want them to report the higher number. That just makes it look worse.

Report the lowest possible number at all times.
 
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zeppelinpage4 said:
If physicians bring the best quality of care (which I'd like to think they do because of the extra years of training), then I absolutely agree with you.

But, when multiple CRNAs are claiming they are doing just fine unsupervised, I'd just like to see some data to negate or support those claims.

I'm not disagreeing with anyone here, but I'd like to know how anesthesiologists are actually providing better care. Most of my google searches comparing CRNAs and MD just bring about threads like the one I linked and this one here, it's all too biased to know the truth. If you know any reliable articles or papers that goes into why anesthesiologists are still superior to CRNAs, I'd happily read it.

Again, I've never worked as either or been on floors, I know jack squat about what it's really like up there. I'm sure you can give some insight on this as you're already working in clinical settings and probably had some real experience with anesthesiologists and CRNAs, and how the two differ. But that's not something I have. I'm really not arguing with anyone, I just don't understand the difference between the two. They seem to do most of the same things on an average day.

And you're right, in an ideal world there would be no CRNA, but they're here now for various reasons. Question is..are their arguments valid?
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The reason there has been so much blurring between the roles of the two is that anesthesia techniques have become so safe and refined over the years that you can stick someone with less training in the room to monitor the patient and usually have no issues. Like other mid-level providers, CRNA's essentially act like overpaid residents. Let's break down what the CRNA does in the operating room: they do the pre-op paperwork immediately before surgery, some of the time will start the IV on the patient (anesthesiologists do this themselves a lot of the time, especially on children), wheel the patient to the OR, help move the patient onto the bed, set up the equipment, place electrodes on the patient, give oxygen, etc, then they call the anesthesiologist into the room. So up until the point the CRNA has done a lot of scut work essentially that the anesthesiologist has been able to avoid. Anesthesiologist is there for induction and intubation; usually they will let the CRNA intubate, if the CRNA is unable to intubate then the anesthesiologist takes over and does it. Once the patient is asleep, the anesthesiologist leaves for another room, and the CRNA starts the gas and essentially puts the patient on autopilot. Throughout the case they are doing paperwork, recording vitals etc. into their chart. They'll make slight changes to the level of anesthesia depending on how the patient is responding to the case, but otherwise they sit in their chair and chill for most of the case. As the case is ending they reverse the patient, call the anesthesiologist into the room, the patient wakes up, and it's done. It's like flying a commercial airliner - the pilot (anesthesiologist) is active for the critical parts, the takeoff (induction/intubation) and landing (reversal/extubation), and the rest of the time the plane is on autopilot. I'll probably get some angry comment from a CRNA saying "we do so much more than that!!!" but from the surgeon's perspective, that's what they do.

While most cases go smoothly, occasionally there is the one where things completely fall apart, and when the s--- is hitting the fan, you want the anesthesiologist at the bedside, not the CRNA. They are simply more experienced, have had more training, and have a better understanding of what their limitations are. If you ask the patient, "Sir, if you have a catastrophic emergency in the operating room and we are struggling to keep you from dying, who would you like at the bedside, your nurse anesthetist or anesthesiologist?" I'm pretty sure most patients will tell you they want the MD there.

As technology keeps getting better and better, it wouldn't surprise me if a computer system was eventually created that could do the job of the CRNA, monitoring the patient's level of anesthesia and vitals and adjusting levels based on some algorithm. Just like putting the plane on autopilot. I don't think it's far fetched.
 
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I talked to a nurse administrator for a hospital about this same issue before. Her take...

She thought CRNAs were great for most things, but saw a couple cases where things were atypical in terms of dosage and response. The pts almost died but the anesthesiologist was there to intervene and turn things around, she explicitly stated this wouldn't have happened with the CRNA since they were following the formula/protocol and it was only making things worse. Training is theoretical and broad scope (med school) to narrow scope (residency) vs. cookbook basic broad scope with no provider training (RN) to cookbook narrow scope (CRNA). For something like 90%+ of cases this won't be apparent, but when $hit hits the fan she was explicit about who she would want based on what she had experienced first hand.

CRNAs are very educated, but the knowledge gap when treated zebras and atypical situations is vast.
 
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Psai said:
"While anesthesiologists say the process is safer when there's a physician involved, nurse anesthetists point to a recent study finding that the care they provide is just as good. "

Actual statement from the paper they quote: No definitive statement can be made about the possible superiority of one type of anaesthesia care over another. The complexity of perioperative care, the low intrinsic rate of complications relating directly to anaesthesia, and the potential confounding effects within the studies reviewed, all of which were non-randomized, make it impossible to provide a definitive answer to the review question.
Click to expand...
Somewhere along the line, nurses said fukit, I'm not doing all those years in med school! I'm gonna half ass it and lobby for a hundred years until society accepts, no, approves of it!
 
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zeppelinpage4 said:
If physicians bring the best quality of care (which I'd like to think they do because of the extra years of training), then I absolutely agree with you.

But, when multiple CRNAs are claiming they are doing just fine unsupervised, I'd just like to see some data to negate or support those claims.

I'm not disagreeing with anyone here, but I'd like to know how anesthesiologists are actually providing better care. Most of my google searches comparing CRNAs and MD just bring about threads like the one I linked and this one here, it's all too biased to know the truth. If you know any reliable articles or papers that goes into why anesthesiologists are still superior to CRNAs, I'd happily read it.

Again, I've never worked as either or been on floors, I know jack squat about what it's really like up there. I'm sure you can give some insight on this as you're already working in clinical settings and probably had some real experience with anesthesiologists and CRNAs, and how the two differ. But that's not something I have. I'm really not arguing with anyone, I just don't understand the difference between the two. They seem to do most of the same things on an average day.

And you're right, in an ideal world there would be no CRNA, but they're here now for various reasons. Question is..are their arguments valid?
Click to expand...

First of all, you're doing a google search instead of a pubmed search to look for papers. That's mistake 1. Second of all, you're a second year, you have no idea what you're talking about. Third, CRNAs looking for independence are not the people you would ask about whether or not a CRNA can match up to a anesthesiologist.

If your life is on the line, would you trust a doctor or a crna? If you were flying in a plane, you can have the pilot get into the air and land the plane. While its on autopilot, you could have a stewardess with flight simulator training sitting there making sure everything is okay. If the plane doesn't crash, are you going to say that the stewardess is just as good as the pilot? Would you trust a stewardess when you hit some turbulence instead of a pilot?

People who can make it into an MD school and get through it successfully will be more competent and have a much greater knowledge base than someone who went to nursing school. The difference between doctors and everyone else is that doctors think. Anyone can do an H&P. They have medical assistants asking questions for the history. But can they interpret it? Can they come up with a solid differential? Can they make the right treatment plan? That's the difference
 
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calvnandhobbs68 said:
Hilarious.
"More than nine years of study...Three years of critical care training in the ICU at Boston Medical Center"
Oh you mean that time when you worked as a RN in an ICU? I didn't know your job counted as "study time".
Click to expand...

It is actually very relevant. They manage the patients who are on vents, they push pressors, and manage critical drips within a given order set.

In many facilities, they run the code teams.

Are they equal in experience in training and skill as an anesthesiologist, no, but many CVRU nurses are very skilled in managing critical patients and have great experience.
 
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acceptmeplease said:
It is actually very relevant. They manage the patients who are on vents, they push pressors, and manage critical drips within a given order set.

In many facilities, they run the code teams.

Are they equal in experience in training and skill as an anesthesiologist, no, but many CVRU nurses are very skilled in managing critical patients and have great experience.
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I know exactly what they do in an ICU.
It's still not appropriate to call those years "years of study". That isn't "training" as they were likely not being formally "trained" in the field of anesthesiology by anybody. I'd even call it a stretch to call it "critical care training" when using it to advance the idea that your end result is equal to physician training, as the training of a critical care physician and a critical care nurse are two different things.
 
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Psai said:
People who can make it into an MD school and get through it successfully will be more competent and have a much greater knowledge base than someone who went to nursing school. The difference between doctors and everyone else is that doctors think. Anyone can do an H&P. They have medical assistants asking questions for the history. But can they interpret it? Can they come up with a solid differential? Can they make the right treatment plan? That's the difference
Click to expand...
Bingo. You're a bright man, Psai.
 
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Psai said:
First of all, you're doing a google search instead of a pubmed search to look for papers. That's mistake 1. Second of all, you're a second year, you have no idea what you're talking about. Third, CRNAs looking for independence are not the people you would ask about whether or not a CRNA can match up to a anesthesiologist.

If your life is on the line, would you trust a doctor or a crna? If you were flying in a plane, you can have the pilot get into the air and land the plane. While its on autopilot, you could have a stewardess with flight simulator training sitting there making sure everything is okay. If the plane doesn't crash, are you going to say that the stewardess is just as good as the pilot? Would you trust a stewardess when you hit some turbulence instead of a pilot?

People who can make it into an MD school and get through it successfully will be more competent and have a much greater knowledge base than someone who went to nursing school. The difference between doctors and everyone else is that doctors think. Anyone can do an H&P. They have medical assistants asking questions for the history. But can they interpret it? Can they come up with a solid differential? Can they make the right treatment plan? That's the difference
Click to expand...

What?!?!
Get the hell out with that attitude. Broad assumptions like yours are why we don't make as great of progress in our training nowadays.
The amount of egotistical drivel here makes me wonder how much interaction people have with anyone outside of doctors. Doctors aren't the only ones who "think". Intelligence isn't based on your degree. I've seen doctors make bad calls. And I've seen nurses save a teams ass with their knowledge and skills.
In my training, I've found nurses to be the saving grace in learning how to work in a hospital. They know how everything works. They can teach you how to not only get to somewhere as some would think but also orders, lines, intubations, suturing, etc.
There is a lot of medicine that doesn't require an md to perform.
And **** off with that condescending remark about a differential and plan. Yes, doctors learn more. But it doesn't require an md for a nurse/pa/np in the ICU to diagnose a pulmonary embolism and the treatment all the time. Doctors are more grateful for this than you would imagine.

Or better yet - would you rather get paged at 3am because the patient has a 3.2 potassium and requires your amazing knowledge to take care of it?
 
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Kaustikos said:
What?!?!
Get the hell out with that attitude. Broad assumptions like yours are why we don't make as great of progress in our training nowadays.
The amount of egotistical drivel here makes me wonder how much interaction people have with anyone outside of doctors. Doctors aren't the only ones who "think". Intelligence isn't based on your degree. I've seen doctors make bad calls. And I've seen nurses save a teams ass with their knowledge and skills.
In my training, I've found nurses to be the saving grace in learning how to work in a hospital. They know how everything works. They can teach you how to not only get to somewhere as some would think but also orders, lines, intubations, suturing, etc.
There is a lot of medicine that doesn't require an md to perform.
And **** off with that condescending remark about a differential and plan. Yes, doctors learn more. But it doesn't require an md for a nurse/pa/np in the ICU to diagnose a pulmonary embolism and the treatment all the time. Doctors are more grateful for this than you would imagine.

Or better yet - would you rather get paged at 3am because the patient has a 3.2 potassium and requires your amazing knowledge to take care of it?
Click to expand...

Kaustikos, this is just slightly ironic given your signature.

Also, I often take issue with this "nurses know how everything works on their floor so we should all learn so much from nurses". If you didn't figure out third year that it's only because they're on the SAME floor all day every day...well you should have figured it out. A lot of what looks impressive in basic medicine is just a factor of having had that experience or done that thing over and over for months.
 
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