National Nurse Anesthetist Week JAN 21-27, 2007

    Your surgery may be minor, but there's no such thing as minor anesthesia.    As a nurse anesthetist almost 40 years, and a patient myself, I do understand how worrisome 'going under' can be.   Lose some of your worries here.  GasPasser.com provides inside information about anesthesia in depth.  Learn, relax, be safe.

   You, as a healthcare consumer, can assist us to provide you the optimum anesthesia care.  Learn about our process, about the anesthesia providers, and the steps you can take to better assure your own safety.
 

Safety!    Did you know? -- Anesthesia
Safety has increased fifty fold in the last 20 years.

    According to the Institute of Medicine, anesthesia today is 50 times safer than only 20 years ago.  Modern technology and drugs, expanded provider education, and more extensive professional standards for nurse anesthetists and anesthesiologists, all have made Twenty First Century anesthesia one of the safest aspects of your surgical procedure.

And ... did you know?--  (The Big Secret)   Most of that excellent hands-on SAFE clinical anesthesia care is given to you by
CRNAs.

    What is  a  CRNA?
     Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists are the oldest type of advanced practice nurse in America, licensed in all States but relatively unknown outside the O.R.  For over 120 years  nurse anesthetists have been in fact America's primary anesthesia provider -- since the 1880s.  Today some 33,000 CRNAs provide two-thirds of all the anesthetics in America.

    As advanced practice nurses, CRNAs practice with a high degree of autonomy and professional respect. CRNAs carry a heavy load of responsibility and are compensated accordingly.

    All CRNAs are board certified -- every single one -- that's the 'C' in CRNA.  In 1931 the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) became the first national group organized for anesthesia professionals.  The AANA was also the first national group to adopt the Harvard Standards on anesthesia monitoring and safety.  (Note: GasPasser.com has no affiliation with, nor endorsement by the AANA.)

    All CRNAs complete continuing education requirements and re-certify every two years.  [Physician anesthesiologists who are not board certified have no such education requirement.]

CRNAs give 2/3 of all anesthetics

    Americans receive some 26 million anesthetics each year, with two thirds (over 17 million) administered by CRNAs.  In rural hospitals, CRNAs alone staff three quarters of the anesthesia departments, serving 70 million rural Americans -- 24 / 7 / 365 days a year -- and half of all hospitals nationwide (1,500 institutions) rely solely on nurse anesthetists.  No scientific study has ever distinguished a significant difference between the anesthesia care delivered by CRNAs and that given by doctors.  How can that be?  Because Anesthesia is unique, the only medical modality that does not diagnose and cure; rather, our unique role is supportive care.  Hands-on care.  So it's natural that nurse practitioners would excel.  American anesthesia offers two classes of providers, and both meet one high standard of care.

So ... what's the difference
between a CRNA and an anesthesiologist?

    In a convergence unique in all of Medicine, both doctors and nurses practice anesthesia, providing the same service side by side -- with, of course, differences.  Such as cost -- eleven CRNAs  can be trained for the price of one anesthesiologist.  (Average cost: $635,000 for a doc [largely tax-subsidized], versus $59,000 for a CRNA [mostly self-pay])   CRNAs earn one quarter to one third the income of their physician counterparts.  Yet, in anesthesia training, both groups receive education that is essentially equivalent, often attending class and clinical side by side.  Both types bring their respective backgrounds to the specialty and both end up full-fledged independent anesthesia providers.  They may work together, or they may choose to work solo.  In the operating room environment, CRNAs and anesthesiologists are functional equivalents.

    CRNAs provide anesthetics to patients in collaboration with surgeons, anesthesiologists, dentists, podiatrists, and other qualified healthcare professionals.  When anesthesia is provided by a nurse anesthetist, it is recognized as the practice of nursing; when administered by an anesthesiologist, it is recognized as the practice of medicine.  Both practice anesthesia so as to meet the same high standard of care.

    All kinds of patients,
one high standard of care.

Why have I not heard of  CRNAs ?

    Well, anesthesia does play tricks with your memory.  Due to the amnesia that often accompanies general anesthesia, you may not even recall having met us, let alone that hard-to-pronounce title, anesthetist.  (Click the speaker symbol on the link page)

    Newsweek magazine once ran a feature on anesthesiologists, the poor forgotten doctors in surgery.  Their cover photo however mistakenly did not depict a doctor, but instead -- of course -- a masked CRNA, the truly unheralded provider.

   Surgery is a confusing, cloistered world, shut away behind O.R. doors.  Scary, worrisome, all that.  Please, don't be too overly concerned about your anesthetic: since CRNAs administer most of the hands-on clinical anesthesia in America, chances are greatly in your favor -- two to one -- that whenever you need to 'go under' there will be a CRNA at  your side and on your side.

   The Best Kept Secret in American Healthcare: CRNAs, Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists.
 

            Enjoy your visit to GasPasser.com!       See site Contents
 

GasPasser.com proudly salutes the 33,000 CRNAs serving America,
Recognized Leaders in Anesthesia Care

NATIONAL NURSE ANESTHETISTS WEEK
JAN 21-27, 2007

 

   (pin available
from AANA)

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