MinorityNurse.com

 

Response to My Dream/Lena Gould, CRNA, MSN

Hello My Future Colleague

Listen to your fiance. You sound like many of us as the "rock" in the family and trying to take care of school, work and familial obligations. However, balancing all of these can be very taxing on you financially, educationally and spiritually. If you are failing the course consider withdrawing if time is allowed and simply start over. It is much better that you pace yourself and get it right than move in quickly and have to explain mediocre grades to the admission committee or worse yet, not be considered at all for any nurse anesthesia program.

You need to have a serious written plan on your pursuits for nurse anesthesia. First of all, you work in the ICU but you did not mention if you have taken the CCRN Exam. If not, focus on this first and sit for the exam by July or August. Most applicants for the nurse anesthesia programs are CCRN and therefore this credential will make them more competitive. Purchase a CCRN Study Guide from a book store and discipline yourself by studying on a daily basis to excel on this test. By this time you can work overtime and save money in your bank account as well. In September, register for the course that you were failing this semester and do exceptionally well. During the time you re-take the course, you need to after work or days off from work, visit the library and commit to reading and studying for this class. You need to honestly assess your study regimine and simply commit to a schedule for you to perform well.

Also, consider taking two or three graduate nursing courses (Nursing Research I and II, Pathophysiology, and or Advance Pharmacology). Again, your grades must reflect you as a competitive applicant. And again, you have to commit to a stringent study regimine. When you are in the graduate course phase, shadow a CRNA for a day. As an ICU Nurse, you interface with CRNAs on a regular basis as they come to the unit and give report on a surgical patient from the operating room. Ask one of them if you can shadow for one day and observe what they do in the operating room. You will ask them when is a good time to report to the operating room so you can observe them perform an anesthesia machine check, draw up anesthesia medications, assess patients prior to entering the operating room, consider their anesthetic plan and their technique.

Seriously consider attending the Diversity in Nurse Anesthesia Information Session at the University of Maryland School of Nursing on March 27th. You will meet three Nurse Anesthesia Program Directors, minority CRNAs and Nurse Anesthesia Students on the panel. The topics of discussion are the admission process, rigors of the program, clinical expectations, didactic courses, Board preparation and Doctoral studies. There will be mostly minority ICU Nurses from across the country who will be in attendance for this comprehensive information workshop. All of the attendees will be given a video of minority nurse anesthesia students reviewing the anesthesia machine and related equipment. This would be great for you to view with your fiance so that both of you can appreciate the CRNA role. If you can not make the event in March consider the second Diversity Information Session in October 2010 at Duke University School of Nursing (North Carolina).

Your dream of becoming a nurse anesthetist is achievable but at a slower pace that will ultimately make you a competitive candidate into a nurse anesthesia program. So stop dreaming and start making this a reality with a better plan of action.

Please visit the Diversity in Nurse Anesthesia Mentorship website, www.diversitycrna.org for the registration and hotel information on the homepage. Peruse the website and see all of those who look like you who are either in the process and or who are thriving as a nurse anesthetist. If you have any other questions for me, please feel free to email me at crna4u@comcast.net.

Take Care, Lena Gould, CRNA, MSN
Founder, Diversity in Nurse Anesthesia Mentorship Program
www.diversitycrna.org