Nurse Anesthetist D.N.P.

Critical care experience must be obtained in a critical care area within the United States, its territories or a US military hospital outside of the United States. During this experience, the registered professional nurse has developed critical decision making and psychomotor skills, competency in patient assessment, and the ability to use and interpret advanced monitoring techniques. A critical care area is defined as one where, on a routine basis, the registered professional nurse manages one or more of the following:

• Invasive hemodynamic monitors (e.g. pulmonary artery, central venous pressure, and arterial catheters)
• Cardiac assist devices
• Mechanical ventilation
• Vasoactive infusions

A minimum of one-year recent full-time critical care experience is required, two or more years is preferred. Examples of critical care units may include but are not limited to:

• Surgical intensive care
• Cardiothoracic intensive care
• Coronary intensive care
• Medical intensive care
• Pediatric intensive care
• Neonatal intensive care
• Trauma or neurological intensive care

While all nursing experience is valuable and is considered helpful in forming a well-rounded practitioner, we do not accept experience in the following areas to meet the critical care requirement:

• ER
• PACU
• Step-Down Units
• Cath Lab
• Interventional Radiology
• Surgery

We do not require CCRN certification for admission. However, we strongly encourage certification due to the competitive nature of our admission process.

The completion of an upper division Biochemistry or Organic Chemistry course at an accredited university or college is required prior to admission to the Nurse Anesthesia Program. If you have not met this requirement, you may still apply to the program and be accepted, however, the course would need to be completed prior to matriculating in the program. These required courses can be taken either in on-campus or online formats and it does not need to have a laboratory component. These courses are in addition to chemistry courses that are commonly taken as part of an undergraduate B.S.N. or B.A.N. program.

Examples of Biochemistry courses that will satisfy this requirement include (listed alphabetically):

• Lake Region State College – CHEM 260 Elements of Biochemistry (online course)
• Minnesota State University Moorhead – CHEM 400 Biochemistry I (online course)
• North Dakota State University – CHEM 260 Elements of Biochemistry
• University of New England – CHEM 1005 Medical Biochemistry (online course)
• University of North Dakota – BIMD 301 Biochemistry and CHEM 341