What is a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist?

and what eduaction do you need, how much does it pay?

In order to become a Nurse Anesthetist you must have a BSN. Most schools require at least one year of ICU experience as an RN although most people have about 2-5 or more. There are a couple more pre-requisite courses you have to take if you haven't had them in your undergraduate courses, like physics, and maybe one more (I can't remember off the top of my head). Then you just search on the web to find Schools (usually of Nursing) that have a Nurse Anesthetist program. allnursingschools.com (I think that's right) is a good source, but I don't think they actually list ALL the schools, most of them, but not all. Just surf around and look at the schools' websites. Hope this helps.

Oh, almost forgot the best part! The pay is great. The average salary is over 100K/year, but depending on where you work, you could make much more. I've heard that in rural hospitals where Nurse Anesthetist are on hand for just about all the surgeries and all the other things that anesthesiologists do, Nurse Anesthetists can make much more! Good luck!

A CRNA is usually a nurse practitioner with special certification in anesthesia.

You need a 4 year BSN degree and then you will will need to get a Master's degree, which is another 2 years, and then be licensed as a nurse practitioner....not too mention you will probably have to have a certain number of hours as an RN to get into an NP program..... and then do special training in anesthesia...its a long haul