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History Of Nursing Anesthetists And The Administration Of Anesthesia

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History of Nursing Anesthetists
Nurse anesthetists are nurses that have specialized in the administration of anesthesia. They have completed the additional schooling, and other requirements necessary to prepare them for this career. Nurse anesthetists have a challenging career that they are fairly compensated for. It is a respected profession that is estimated to grow significantly in the future. Furthermore there are many options for growth and promotion opportunities. This career comes with a certain amount of autonomy that can be appealing to certain people. It can also be a very stressful job as many times the patients life is left in the hands of the anesthetist. Nurse anesthetists give amazing care to their patients and they …show more content…

When they returned to the United States Hodgins created Lakeside Hospital School of Anesthesia where the price of tuition was $50.00 and the training only lasted 6 months (History of Nurse Anesthesia, 2011). One-hundred years later the price and amount of training needed has gone up significantly.
In the year 1931 the National Association of Nurse Anesthetists (NANA) was formed by Agatha Hodgins; although it is now known as the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) ("Timeline of AANA History," 2011). The AANA is the only professional association for nurse anesthetists and has helped implement school requirements and guidelines, a mandatory recertification program, and continuing education along with many others. The AANA requires a minimum of 40 hours every two years of continuing education in order to remain a nurse anesthetist (History of Nurse Anesthesia, 2011). The first dues paid by members were $5.00, whereas those dues today are $645.00; at this time only caucasian women were allowed to become members. ("Timeline of AANA History," 2011). It wasn’t until the 1940’s that African American’s as well as men were allowed to join the association ("Timeline of AANA History," 2011). Through these years nurse anesthetists passed on information and techniques for the different anesthesias they knew.

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