Rutgers Nursing Magazine - Summer 2020

The Making of a CRNA We do everything that an anesthesiologist does,” affirms Dr. Thomas Pallaria (DNP, APN, CRNA), assistant professor and director of Rutgers’ nurse anesthesia program. In fact, the most significant difference between the two types of prac- titioners is cost. According to a recent study by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, the average billable amount per procedure for an anesthesiol- ogist is $470 versus $307 for a nurse anesthetist. In an era of skyrocketing med- ical expenses, that difference is significant. Since its inception, Rutgers’ graduate pro- gram in nurse anesthesia has turned out 250 nurse anesthetists, who’ve gone on to work in hospitals and clinics across the U.S. Pallaria has helped introduce CRNA practices at both Newark Beth Israel Med- ical Center and St. Barnabas Medical Center. Today, there are some 1,000 CRNAs working in New Jersey and 54,000 across the country, and their num- bers are growing. The need for them is likely to grow as well, as the Baby Boom generation ages and requires an increasing number of surgical procedures. As it happens, nurses were administering anesthesia long before medical doctors, most notably on Civil War battlefields. “We’ve been providing anesthesia care in this country for 150 years,” says Pallaria, who received his doctoral degree from Rut- gers after completing his master’s degree in anesthesia at Columbia University in 2000. Before that, he was a critical care nurse for four years, but, he says, “I was looking for a more science-based profession—I’m a very precise person and anesthesia is a precise science, so I naturally gravitated toward it.” Preparation and Precision Rutgers’ three-year doctoral program in nurse anesthesia, offered at the nursing school’s Newark campus, affords the kind of intensive education a precise science like anesthesiology demands. The program includes a challenging practicum requir- ing at least 2,600 hours of clinical work “SINCE ITS INCEPTION, RUTGERS’ GRADUATE PROGRAM IN NURSE ANESTHESIA HAS TURNED OUT 250 (L-R) Nurse anesthesia program faculty administrators Michael McLaughlin, assistant program director; Maureen Anderson, simulation director; and Thomas Pallaria, program director.