Nursing no longer considered a professional degree
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President commie Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect
He will likely make all non professional schools like crna schools free.
Ha ha jk. (I hope)
It may put pressure on crna schools to become cheaper
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I guess it’s about to get harder to be an NP or crna. Or just more expensive so they may have to lower their standards of admission.
Super inconsistent thinking as some states like NC allow NPs to practice independently after a little experience and many states allow CRNA’s independence….
Super inconsistent thinking as some states like NC allow NPs to practice independently after a little experience and many states allow CRNA’s independence….
I got on Reddit a lot as I have posted before. I see many of these nursing posts. Many of them openly admit they are often times not comfortable in practice (NP) due to their training.
As always. We only hear about the most vocal militant ones who say they can be “independent” the minute they graduate. There is confidence. And there is being humble.
NPs maybe but I don’t hear that much from crnas….
They tell Me the newer ones. Very honest young crnas. I always tell they have a good head on their shoulders. Being humble is the greatest gift any profession can give to their patients.
There some pretty bad militant ones out there. They just add on to their bad practice without anyone correcting them. At least some of the newer ones know they need some seasoning. It’s always the 80/20 rule. 80% know their limitations. 20% don’t know their limitations.
This goes for new docs as well.
Specifically, nurse practitioners. It's a pretty arbitrary ruling. Physician assistants and physical therapists also are no longer on the list of professional programs. This impacts the amount of money they can borrow from the federal government to pay for school, and means they aren't eligible for the public loan forgiveness program.
What the normal rule? Never borrow more than 2x as much as u can normally make annually?
I’m sure some private lender will lend these people money cause they know the lower end of their income (regular NPs) are 120k.
CRNAs Excluded From $200K Student Loan Cap; AANA Advocates for Inclusion
Program start: May 1, 2026
- Tuition + fees: $150,000
- Living expenses: $60,000
- Total cost of attendance: $210,000
Seems strange that physical therapy is included. A good PT is worth their weight in gold. And PAs get far more training than NPs.
Nad chiropractors are still included as professional degree???? Wtf
Along with theologians
the most dangerous people are the ones who don't know what they don't know
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Blade hear me out….
What this will likely do is link these CRNAs who cant pay for tuition with groups and big corporations like HCA that can pay the tuition costs and likely force them into employment contracts. This could impact the numbers of crnas going straight into locums and could help many groups meet staffing shortages. While potentially lowering the costs of crnas.
I think you fail to understand the current generation lack of loyalty and work ethic.
This is chess and checkers. And employers are the ones playing checkers
The new generation just wants to work when they feel like working.
Who knows. I could be wrong. They may take the sign on bonus to stay. But bolt when the time comes.
So what you’ll get is crnas mostly from well-to-do families that can help pay the bills (already true for many) or they’ll have to work a few more years in the icu to save up to take time off. Or the schools will have to cut the price (unlikely).
Narcusprince’s idea makes sense too, HCA etc will make them indentured servants for 5 years for free tuition. Wouldn’t surprise me if this was their idea, gets them off the books for loan forgiveness so the govt sees a win-win.
You're 100% right.
There's a CRNA management group 'round these parts that has this absolutely wacky fantasy that if they just bring some SRNAs through for a rotation, that they'll create some kind of recruitment pipeline. That these SRNAs, who spend a couple months with them, joined at the hip with some 1099 locums CRNA, are going to want to be permanent W2 employees for them when they graduate.
It's not even checkers, it's tic tac toe, or maybe Candyland.
I can't tell if they're actually stupid enough to believe that theory, or if some other sinister game is afoot.
It's a great idea.
It works for the military and doctors.
For a pittance in tuition costs, they lock very expensive labor into long contacts at incredibly sub-market rates.
I can't believe AMCs haven't done this with CRNAs yet.
What's wrong with that though? Isn't that what everyone wants?
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Not always. People want ownership and equity.
If I had my way I would NEVER go into work and just collect money. Be the top of the pyramid and collect money from the suckas 80s-90s style.
Wow no one's ever wanted to do that before.
Same reason given here for us signing a contract with an SRNA program. Meanwhile we’ve signed exactly zero. When I asked in the recent mtg where they did sign and why, admin looked at me like I had three heads. Never occurred to them to, ya know, follow up and address the reason? (Newsflash, it’s the pay.)
Becoming a rotation site for AA students has led to us successfully hiring a good amount of new grads. That and the fact that they take no call and work no holidays or weekends while making close to $300K.
Now if we can keep them before administration screws it up will be the ultimate question.
Now if we can keep them before administration screws it up will be the ultimate question.
If we have to hurdle state legislatures to enact AA licensure. Why cant we just forego that and just train existing PAs to do anesthesia to compete with CRNAs who wanna go indy. PAs are already licensed in all 50 states and have all the pre reqs. organize a PA anesthetist program. Make it 24-30 months of intense training to pump out anesthetists who are part of the ACT and let the CRNAs go indy. Seems like an easy solution because the nurses rhetoric is getting more and more ridiculous every year.
That was the basis behind my original post. Even though we know they aren’t considered professionals only for getting student loans, do we think that hospital admins, insurance companies, patients, etc will look at them negatively, too? Do we think this will finally neutralize their rhetoric of being “equal” (😂) to anesthesiologists?
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That ain't the solution. How many militant surgical PAs have you met? I've personally met way too many that think they are attending surgeons.
Anesthesia was meant to be practiced solo. We weren't meant to run around corralling dangerous CRNAs all day, fraudulently signing charts because we can't be in two places at once, and hoping they don't kill anyone under our license.
It's not our job to make sure every OR and procedure suite in the US has an anesthesiologist liability sponge assigned to it. The rest of the mid-levels (CRNAs, AAs, PAs, whatever) can practice solo and inevitably demand to be compensated the same as us.
It is just about getting the loans repaid. They analyzed it, and they weren’t getting paid off or the borrowers were making only small IBR payments with no hope of paying off in the future.
If you were making the rules up to solve all of the problems how on earth would you cover every anesthetic solo? and if that was your goal how long would an acceptable waiting list(waiting for a anesthesiologist) be for routine elective surgery: hysterectomies, Gallbladders, etc etc. 2 years, 3 years?
How on earth would you do it?
I practice solo: this is what I like. It is easier for me. BUt I realize there is only one of me. I am thinking outside the box, and at the same time trying to introduce mid-level competition to the care team to maximize efficiency.
Not sure why everyone is under the illusion that this change in loan caps is a nursing issue. It affects CAAs, PAs, audiologists, and numerous other graduate level non-physician providers. Of course all the "professional" nursing organizations make everyone think the sky is falling and that there won't be any more nurses - never mind that undergrad nursing programs are not affected at all. Grad school is expensive anywhere in any field.
Y'all are nice. I took call, nights, weekends, and holidays for the first 40 years of my CAA career.
4 CRNAs and 1 anesthesiologist gets you 4 rooms with supervision. But it gets you 5 rooms with independent CRNAs.
80% of patients suffer. But that is what society wants.
Nah, it just hasn't happened yet. This is a historically physician only group that was forced to add care team ~7-8 yrs ago. They refused to have crnas so a few AAs were brought in, working 4 tens. We've steadily increased the number of AAs over the years and we're quickly approaching a tipping point that will involve weekends and then overnights, the writing is on the wall! Especially as our hospital is trying to become a level 1 trauma center. As of now their role has been to help get all that work done in the daytime.
The general docs typically medically direct 1-2 days per week. Cardiac and peds do it 1-4 days per month.
That is NOT what society wants. That is want the NURSES who think having a nursing education no longer needs medical supervision
It is not my job to solve all of the world's problems. It is my job to take the best possible care of the patient in front of me.
Crappy surgeons, crappy, hospitals, and undiscerning patients get solo mid-levels. Good surgeons, good hospitals, and discerning patients who request an anesthesiologist get solo anesthesiologists.
I don't think puffing up more unqualified mid-levels in our profession is a good thing. The mid-levels can fight each other for table scraps. I don't care.
You cannot say that and expect the world to take you serious. You have to be part of the solution, or at least try to be.
My initial post that you responded to I was trying to think outside the box by introducing PAs into the profession (all medically directed of course) to cover the Tsunami or surgical volume that we are about to see in the next 7-15 years. Saying good surgeons want solo anesthesia is ok but it wont solve the widespread problem of having enough staff to get surgeries done on a widespread basis. Too many of us are retiring every year and too many of us want to work part-time and frankly too many of us wanna retire as soon as possible.
Mid levels want physician pay. I see it all the time in crna posts. They say if they are practicing independently. They should get anesthesiologist pay.
It’s just ironic the aana is completely silent on the average pay for crnas these days. No longer are the comparing salaries.
It will get to the point where the crna and the anesthesiologist pay will likely be less than 10% per hour and the only difference may be sub speciality pay or night call/weekend pay.
As for loans. I do not think all student loans are out control for “professional” dnp or pa school. I think people play games and leverage debt and claim they can’t afford it. I don’t understand the capping of student loans for certain masters level degrees or fake doctor nursing professional degrees.
It’s just ironic the aana is completely silent on the average pay for crnas these days. No longer are the comparing salaries.
It will get to the point where the crna and the anesthesiologist pay will likely be less than 10% per hour and the only difference may be sub speciality pay or night call/weekend pay.
As for loans. I do not think all student loans are out control for “professional” dnp or pa school. I think people play games and leverage debt and claim they can’t afford it. I don’t understand the capping of student loans for certain masters level degrees or fake doctor nursing professional degrees.
Sure, buddy. You keep on your crusade of dumbing down our profession by promoting more mid-level coverage.
Yes, why not just import all the doctors from third world countries since they can do it for cheaper.
Do it your way and the profession will be equal to nursing and get paid like them and all of the cases still wont be covered. You know my idea is a good idea cuz all the nurses are vehemently against it.
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That wasn't my proposal and I never said anything about cost.
I know of a place in a major Southwest city, that for years has been running 10 operating rooms, plus endo, all CRNA. They have a token anesthesiologist (some foreign wanker, who can barely do his own cases) who may not even be working at that hospital, as they have several off-site contracts around the city. Going on for at least 5-6 years.
Why don’t we just hire kids straight of high school? Or make up a fake online Associate’s degree called Anesthesia Practitioner and pump them immediately into poorly staffed ORs at the age of 19 that we can cover 1:10? Or sell out our profession completely like tele-ICU physicians and staff multiple different hospitals at once remotely from the comfort of our own home?
Psych is already doing that bruh. NP psych online degrees. Doing online tele psych being proctored by another online “professor”. It’s the funnest thing I have seen. Not only online professor. An online professor proctoring online student from their own remote location not in the same room as online student
So online professor is at Miami Beach. Online student is at Jacksonvile beach. Virtually seeing online patient in Tampa.
That's the future of medicine!
We don't need experts in anything anymore. As long as the billing machine keeps churning along, quality of care is inconsequential.
