The International Federation of Nurse Anesthetists [IFNA] has been striving to promote quality education and practice standards since it began in 1989. Many organizations throughout the world have recognized these efforts including the International Council of Nurses. This Guest Editorial summarizes IFNA's achievements and introduces IFNA's new initiative to enhance the quality of anesthesia ca...

This qualitative study identifies and describes different ways in which newly graduated nurse anesthetists (NAs) experience and perceive nurse anesthesia. It explains different approaches to nurse anesthesia care and, thus, to clinical nursing care (in an anesthesia and surgical context), provided by new NAs. One month after graduation, all NAs who had completed an anesthesia nursing program re...

This study explored Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists' (CRNAs') knowledge about 8 common herbal supplements that potentially cause perioperative complications, beliefs regarding herbal supplement-anesthesia interactions, and preoperative assessment practices. A multiple-choice descriptive survey was mailed to a random sample of CRNAs from the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AA...

AANA Journal ß August 2010 ß Vol. 78, No. 4 301 Managing stress for student nurse anesthetists represents a multifaceted educational concern for anesthesia educators. Our purpose was to determine the relationship between physiologic measures of stress and performance of student nurse anesthetists during anesthesia simulator training. Following institutional review board approval, 18 students we...

Economic pressures and the challenge to maintain competitive advantage have resulted in many healthcare entities requiring their practitioners to contractually enter into noncompete clauses (NCCs). Many student registered nurse anesthetists (SRNAs) and Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) are unaware of NCCs in employee contracts. An anonymous, web-based questionnaire regarding NCCs ...

In order to foster academic progression and improve retention in nurse anesthesia programs, admission selection criteria require attention. With the escalating cost of graduate education coupled with the current economic crisis, efforts by educational leaders to minimize attrition remain pivotal. Selecting potential candidates who are most likely to succeed, aligned with data-driven evidence, o...

The use of simulation to imitate real-life scenarios reaches back many centuries. In the last decade, the use of simulation in healthcare has gained acceptance as a valuable tool for teaching and learning technical and nontechnical skills in healthcare. The use of simulation technology has moved medical education from the standard of pen and paper examinations to the assessment of clinical comp...

BACKGROUND Transfers of patient care and responsibility among caregivers, "handovers," are common. Whether handovers worsen patient outcome remains unclear. The authors tested the hypothesis that intraoperative care transitions among anesthesia providers are associated with postoperative complications. METHODS From the records of 138,932 adult Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland, Ohio) surgical patie...