CRNA School Almost Killed Me!
My First Week in CRNA School I went into SVT. Not even kidding. HA! I’m not sure what caused it. I’m just sitting there in class about to learn about breathing systems or something and all of sudden “oh, there goes my heart rate” it’s 140. What’s that? That’s not fast enough? Oh, 140 ya say? Haha, I start feeling a little diaphoretic and some tingling in my arms at this point. Oh My God, my heart is going to explode and I’m going to die right here learning about anesthesia equipment.
I was told it was panic attack? I think it had something to do with coffee. It takes a lot to get me stressed. All I know is I went in and out of SVT over the period of a month and then it just quit and has never happened again. Maybe coffee and anesthesia school doesn’t go well together. Lessoned learned! So, that might have been like the second or third week, not technically the first week in CRNA school. The first week was more like an orientation to how we are going to have no lives for the next 27 months so get ready. The anesthesia instructors told us what to expect and what was expected of us. We took a tour of the hospital and got all of our badges, pagers, keys, etc.
My First Semester in CRNA School
My first semester in CRNA school was Assessment, Integrated Health Sciences, and A&P 1, and some paper writing class about nursing theory. Oh Joy! There was no hand holding or easing into it either. The first week of nurse anesthetist school I think I had to read one or two chapters in a health assessment book, two or three from Nagelhaut, and like three chapters from a medical anatomy and physiology text book. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but those chapters aren’t short and the content is in-depth. I rarely did a lot of reading in nursing school, so I knew this was going to be tough. The summer semester was in the classroom only, and we got Fridays off which was helpful, but you really needed that extra day to play catch up. I really enjoyed that first semester, and looking back it was the least stressful.
That first semester wasn’t too extremely difficult even though we studied breathing systems, the anesthesia machine, chemistry and physics, airway equipment, had three huge papers to write, assessment modules to complete every day, and covered all of the major body systems. The content wasn’t presented in a complicated manner, which was nice. It was really just getting used to being back in a fast paced educational program after 7 years of being out of school. Time management is important in anesthesia and can mean the difference between passing and failing, or at least give you an extra hour or two of sleep a night.
Over all I was happy with my first semester in the anesthesia program. I still think back to when I was trying to get into CRNA school, and now I am done with my first semester. If you put in the hard work it will pay off. Stay tuned I have plenty more CRNA school stories to share!!!
R. Patrick RRNA
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John Keith | CRNA Career Pro
Chief CRNA