CRNA stresses importance of access to anesthesia services

ROCHESTER, Ind. --- Sarah Wild is a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA), APRN, as well as a member of the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology (AANA). Wild is from and currently lives in Rochester, Indiana. She also goes to various facilities throughout the state. 

According to Wild, CRNAs take the nursing route, go to nursing school, are ICU nurses, and then go to 3-4 years of training for a doctorate or master's level education. 

“A lot of what we call our AP RN level; they oftentimes have to work under a collaborating physician. But as CRNAs, we are trained at the highest level to provide independent anesthesia. So why a lot of big cities and providers provide anesthesia under a supervision model, maybe they collaborate with physicians —CRNAs in rural communities, we are able to provide anesthesia as independent providers, and so these small communities don't have to pay for two types of providers,” said Wild. 

Wild says that when she was finished with school, she moved back home. She explained why she thinks this type of care is so important in rural communities. 

“Small, rural communities don't have access to a ton of different providers and so being able to be a CRNA who offers the highest-level anesthesia care for pain, nerve blocks, or OB, so many different opportunities. It's been really cool to be able to offer those services for a small community that may not otherwise be able to offer some of these services.” 

She says there are different types of providers who can provide anesthesia, like anesthesiologists and CRNAs. 

“There are over 65,000 CRNAs in the United States that provide anesthesia. There are also anesthesiologists who provide anesthesia, and in many different settings, it works great. You know, they're a good team, but there are so many places like we've talked about that need anesthesia care, and these communities can't afford to pay two anesthesia providers to provide all this,” said Wild. 

She gave some examples of what she does beyond surgery. 

“There's also a lot of services that you don't think about anesthesia being needed. So, I'll get called from the ER with an ankle fracture, and that patient is in excruciating pain. Well, we don't do trauma surgery at our facility. We have to transfer them to another hospital, which could take a couple hours, all the while that patient is sitting there in excruciating pain, and has to deal with the pain,” said Wild. “Anesthesia providers, we can be called in, and we can actually do pain management, nerve blocks, for instance, to at least give them enough pain relief to get to the next location. I do OB epidurals to laboring moms, whereas in some small communities, they go into labor, and they don't have that option, you know, you just—- you get what you get.”