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Originally Posted by Denatured
I must agree. Being a NP and CRNA is great because you can two different specialties. The more generalist style practitioner, the safer you'll be in any economy or market. NP will likely not help in anesthesia school. According to personal friends, NP school does not cover the depth of A&P/pharm. CRNA takes gross anatomy and usually two physiology courses. Pharm is usually 3 classes in anesthesia. NP certainly does not even approach the anesthesia/surgery specific stuff. You're assessment skills will be better, so will your basic pharm, but I've heard you have an advantage for about a few months. Then everyone approaches the learning curve the same.
I would not want to be a AA. Too many limitations. Can't practice without an MDA nearby, so no rural off site settings. Restricted to major medical centers for the most part. Few states to legally practice.
I hate to burst your bubble, but a prereq to CRNA school is one year acute care experience as an RN. Now the school can decide what is acute care (most say any ICU, some take ER), but it must be as an RN. Usually it has to be fairly recent experience as well. Who knows though, I've seen them bend the rules before. Only for really, REALLY bright students. I would call schools you want to apply for and ask.
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Actually, what is so nice about the program I've been looking into is that for the last 2 years of the program, you actually work as an RN while taking the NP classes online. So I would actually be eligible to work in the ICU during those 2 years.
It occurs to me like this: if a regular BSN program would take about 2 years to complete, why not just add a third year and get qualified as an NP with an MSN, especially since, upon graduating from the NP program, I would already have 1-2 years of ICU RN experience and would be eligible to immediately begin CRNA school? It just seems to make so much more sense to do one of these three-year MSN programs and then go to CRNA school, rather than do a two-year BSN and have to work for a year anyways before going to CRNA school. In other words, the BSN route would still take three years when you add the required year of ICU work, so why not just get the MSN and be done in the same amount of time but be qualified to practice as both an RN and an NP?