About This Role
This night-shift post on the cardiac ward pairs patient care with mentoring new nurses. This position is eligible for the Education Debt Reduction Program (EDRP), a student loan payment reimbursement program. You must meet specific eligibility requirements per VHA policy and submit your EDRP application within four months of appointment. Program Approval, award amount (up to $200,000) and eligibility period (one to five years) are determined by the VHA Education Loan Repayment Services program office after review of the EDRP application. Former EDRP participants are ineligible to apply.
Responsibilities
- Translate into anesthesia care the principles of professional nursing practice including the patients' rights to autonomy, dignity, privacy, and safety
- Frame anesthesia practice using current research and practice guidelines, including up-to-date techniques, pharmacology, and equipment
- Obtain, document, and verify informed anesthesia consent
- Perform a pre-anesthetic patient history and physical, which includes managing pre-operative consults and interpreting data
- Formulate a patient-specific anesthetic plan and describe salient anesthetic risks, benefits, and options to the patient
- Administer inhalational, regional, intravenous, local, and topical anesthetics
- Detect and treat anesthesia or surgically related physiologic changes and treat accordingly to maintain homeostasis
- Assess patient status for appropriateness of transfer of care to another healthcare provider
- Communicate essential patient information to other providers effectively
- Participate in collaborative responsibility for proper patient positioning, physiologic monitoring, infection control, and anesthesia documentation
- Respond to emergency situations by providing airway management, fluid and medication administration, invasive line insertion and management, and the use of advanced cardiac life support techniques
- Provide patient care that is abreast of changing concepts and advancements in the profession (e.g., ultrasound techniques)
Requirements
- Master's or doctoral degree in nurse anesthesia from a school of professional nursing anesthesia accredited by the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Education Programs (COA) at the time the program was completed
- Maintain an active, current, full, and unrestricted license to practice as a CNA or equivalent, in a State, Territory or Commonwealth of the United States or in the District of Columbia
- Maintain full and current certification by the National Board of Certification and Recertification for Nurse Anesthetists (NBCRNA) or an equivalent Nurse Anesthetist certification recognized by the COA
- Meets basic education requirement for an APN (CNA)
- No experience is required for Nurse II, which is considered the entry grade level for APN (CNAs)