Her Nursing Specialty
Is Taking
Off
words by Eve Jacobs / photographs by Pete Byron
Catie Quigley, MSN,
UMDNJ-School of Nursing '06
Catie Quigley — 30 years old and just 10 months out of a master’s program — has stepped into one of the “hottest,” although still relatively unknown, professions of the 21st century.
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he is one of four graduates of the very first class of nurse anesthetists to receive their degrees (in December 2006) from UMDNJ-School of Nursing's Newark program. Most career prognosticators give this field high grades, although those on the threshold of choosing their life’s work still know very little about it. Salaries — often upward of $150,000 nationwide — are certainly a primary driving factor in this profession’s “job satisfaction” category. It’s a telling statistic that men account for 43 percent of the country’s 30,000 nurse anesthetists, while they make up only 8 percent of the nursing workforce nationwide.
For anyone still thinking that nurses stay by the bedside following physicians’ orders, the level of autonomy and authority of this profession may come as a shock. After reviewing her work-plan with an anesthesiologist, Quigley is principally responsible for delivering anesthesia for most of her surgeries. Actually, in rural hospitals, chances are good that nurse anesthetists run the anesthesiology show there. In two thirds of all such hospitals in this country, CRNAs (certified registered nurse anesthetists) are the only anesthesia providers.
But don’t worry about their ability to provide optimum care. The education and credentialing requirements are very stringent; and the safety record of CRNAs is extraordinarily high. While only top students are admitted into nurse anesthesia programs, the schooling is so tough that not all make the grade.
Quigley graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1999 with a Bachelor in Nursing (BSN) degree and immediately went to work as a “med-surg” nurse at Thomas Jefferson Medical Center in Philadelphia. Her patients on the unit were very sick and the work was difficult, but it provided her with a good platform for her future in nursing. After a year, she took a new job at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in the medical ICU, where she stayed for five years.
She knew very little about the nurse anesthetist specialization until a friend entered Columbia University’s program. That coincided with Quigley’s interest in
continuing her education. After “shadowing” two CRNAs at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, she decided this was a profession she could truly love. She recommends “shadowing” to anyone considering a career change, particularly specializations requiring a large investment of time and money.
Because she lived in South Jersey, she applied to several schools in the Philadelphia area, and was accepted by all but the University of Pennsylvania. When UMDNJ’s affiliation with the program at Our Lady of Lourdes in Camden was discontinued, her application was forwarded to UMDNJ’s program in Newark, which she didn’t even know existed. Interviewed in early June, she was accepted the day before Father’s Day and started in September. “All of the other schools have two-year waiting periods and I didn’t want to wait two years to go back to school, so I sold my house, resigned from my job and moved north,” she says.
Quigley was not surprised by the amount of work required by the program. “I had heard that school would be grueling and that I’d have a ton of studying,” she remembers, “but I never felt it was over the top.” She does recommend not holding a job, and taking loans if necessary, since the courses are so challenging and the starting salaries high enough to pay back loans quickly.
The 72-credit UMDNJ program runs 28 months straight with the first three semesters (fall, spring and summer) spent primarily in the classroom with one clinical day each week, and the last four semesters (fall, spring, summer and fall) being devoted primarily to clinical work. “I would study all day Saturday and Sunday,” says Quigley, who figures that the program demands at least a 60-hour per week commitment.
UMDNJ’s program gradually integrates clinical experience starting with the second semester, explains the nurse anesthetist, while many others are strictly classroom for the first year. Early in the clinical practicum, a CRNA preceptor is always with the student, teaching and supervising all aspects of administering anesthesia in progressively more complex cases, she says. During the last three semesters, “you more often work directly with an anesthesiologist.”
With such rigorous training, Quigley felt competent to take a job at UMDNJ’s University Hospital where she says the pace is hectic and patients are very sick. “But there is a lot of variety and you learn a lot, and I like to work hard,” she says, comparing it to a surgery center or community hospital, where the pace is slower and sedation is often done only on healthy patients.
At University Hospital, the CRNA work week averages 40 hours. Flexible scheduling allows for a variety of shifts consisting of 8, 12, or 16 hours. Quigley’s shifts are usually 12 hours, but she often has cases starting at 7:30 in the morning and doesn’t leave the hospital until 9 or 10 at night. “I get there at 6:30,” she says “to do a full machine check and get equipment. I don’t like to rush. It’s optional to be “on call” but Quigley feels it’s a great learning experience, especially when she has the opportunity to help in a trauma case.
Just 18 months post-graduation, Quigley’s perspective on choosing and surviving a CRNA program, and entering the workforce, is certainly current. First and foremost, she tells those thinking about the field to get employment in any kind of ICU (cardiac, medical, surgical) as soon as possible because most nurse anesthetist master’s programs require several years of this kind of experience. Operating room, emergency room or recovery area work will usually not fulfill the requirements for entry into most CRNA programs. She also advises getting approval to take selected Master’s in Nursing courses before entering the program: “That allows you to really concentrate on the anesthesia training.
The advantages of the profession are obvious, according to Quigley: “fabulous pay, wonderful autonomy, great hours (often no weekends or holidays), exciting work, and a great schedule. I come home, sleep and go out that night.”
But do you have what it takes? “You should be independent, very dedicated, mature, very serious about your job,” advises Quigley. “I actually think you need a Type A personality for this. You have to be so exact, so painstaking during the whole procedure. You have to be ‘on’ all the time. These drugs are not harmless.”
And last but not least is the national certifying exam. The board exams were really difficult, states Quigley, who studied eight hours a day, five to six days a week, for two straight months. She passed on her first try as did her three fellow graduates at UMDNJ.
“And once you pass the national certifying exam, you can work in any state. You can go anywhere.”
Did all of her studying pay off? “I’m ecstatic,” she says. “This is SO worth it — two and a half years of your life and you have a great career and a great lifestyle. And you have so many options — the job market is fabulous.”