What is the difference between an anesthesiologist and a nurse anesthetist?

Is there a difference in pay? And what does the anesthesiologist do that a nurse anethetist cant do?

the difference is s nurse aneth. works under the supervision of an anesth. and an anesthesiologisst is a MD. so there is longer schooling and the pay is greater. hope this helps.

When the s*** hits the fan, the nurse anesthetist calls the anesthesiologist, not the other way around!

Seriously, we have more training than the nurse anesthetists do, and more responsibility. Consequently, we earn more than they do.

In most places, nurse anesthetists must work under the supervision of a physician. Sometimes that is the surgeon, which I've always found a little discomforting, because the surgeon knows less about anesthesia than the CRNA does. The anesthesiologist is responsible for the preoperative evaluation, and must be present for induction, emergence, and key portions of the case. We often put in the spinals, epidurals or nerve blocks when those are done.

What a nurse anesthetist can and cannot do is regulated by individual states' regulations and individual hospitals' regulations, as well as by that practitioner's specific hospital privileges.

An anesthesiologist is a doctor that has gone to medical school, internship, and residency. A nurse anesthetist has gone to nursing school then graduate program.

Both get paid a lot like over 150,000. But the doctor gets paid more because they've had more training