糖心logo入口

Request Info Apply
2025-26 Academic Draft Catalog

Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA)

Overview

The CRNA program is designed for registered nurses with a bachelor degree who want to pursue clinical excellence and develop the skills required for a leadership role in the profession of nurse anesthesia. Students who complete this doctoral program will earn a Doctor of Nursing Practice - Nurse Anesthesia (DNP-NA) degree. This program prepares students for licensure as an advanced practice registered nurse and to be eligible to take the national certification examination.


Our 90-credit CRNA program employs a hybrid model consisting of online courses, face-to-face immersive learning experiences, simulations, and clinical residencies. The program comprises nine 13-week semesters and takes three years to complete with no summers off. The program’s modified front-loaded model allows students to complete first-year courses almost entirely online. Students will complete more than 2000 hours of anesthesia care for patients during the five residency experiences. Residencies will take place in critical access, rural, community, and urban tertiary hospitals.

Mission

The mission of the College of Nursing is to cultivate compassionate and exceptional clinicians, leaders, scholars, and innovators. Our program is dedicated to preparing graduates who integrate their mind, body, and spirit to positively impact the world, embodying the service and compassion exemplified by Christ.

Accreditation

The CRNA program is under eligibility review by the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs (COA).

Degree Outcomes

  1. Integrate concepts from liberal arts and sciences in promoting health and delivering individualized care.
  2. Provide evidence-based nursing care that incorporates diversity, human dignity, and cultural humility.
  3. Utilize standards of nursing practice and current science to deliver safe, competent, equitable, person-centered care to patients across the lifespan in a variety of settings.
  4. Generate, translate, and disseminate nursing knowledge (nurse anesthesia) based on scientific evidence and clinical expertise while integrating and improving health and healthcare.
  5. Incorporate established and emerging principles of safety and improvement science to enhance quality and minimize risk of harm to patients and providers through both system effectiveness and individual performance.
  6. Collaborate effectively as a leader and member of the interprofessional surgical team to maximize communication and coordination of care to achieve the best patient outcomes.
  7. Lead within complex systems to provide safe, quality, equitable care to diverse populations.
  8. Apply technology and scientific health information to coordinate and deliver personalized healthcare across the lifespan.
  9. Demonstrate professional values that integrate lifelong learning, service, and reflective practice.
  10. Employ principles of leadership to support quality improvement, safety, and cost containment initiatives in a variety of settings.

Admission Requirements

DEGREE

  • Applicants must have a degree from a regionally accredited institution and graduate from a nationally accredited nursing program (CCNE,ACEN, or CNEA).
  • Following is a list of degrees accepted for all DNP specialties:
    • Bachelor of Science in Nursing
    • Post-Baccalaureate BSN
    • Master of Science in Nursing entry


GPA

  • Applicants must have earned a 3.0 or higher GPA in their last 60 units/credits of nursing courses.
  • Applicants must have completed all courses below with a C or better and an overall 3.0 or higher GPA within 10 years of the application deadline.
    • Chemistry: 1 course
    • Human Anatomy and Physiology: 2 course
    • Biology: 1 course (not A & P)
    • Statistics: 1 semester


RN LICENSE

  • Applicants for all DNP specialties must have a current, unencumbered RN license and must be able to obtain OR licensure by the end of semester one.



REFERENCES

  • Applicants must submit a total of two references from professional colleagues – one of each is required (supervisor, peer or CRNA shadow preceptor)


TRANSCRIPTS

  • Applicants must submit transcripts from all post-secondary education institutions.

  • All transcripts must be verified by NursingCAS within 2 weeks of the application deadline. No exceptions.


EXPERIENCE

  • Applicants must have completed at least one year (a minimum of 1800 hours) of critical care ICU work within the past three years. (residency/orientation hours do not count toward minimum critical care hours)
    • The following experiences will count toward this requirement: coronary, cardiac, burn, flight crew, medical, surgical, trauma, neuro, pediatric.
    • The following experience will not count toward this requirement: neonatal ICU, emergency room.
  • Competencies desired include:
    • Routine management of adult patients on ventilators
    • Using and interpreting of advanced monitoring techniques based on physiological and pharmacological principles
    • Titration of vasoactive medications



CERTIFICATIONS

  • Applicants must have earned the following certifications by the application deadline: ACLS, BLS, PALS, CCRN
  • ACLS, BLS, and PALS certifications must be issued from the American Heart Association

Transfer Credit

Students who have completed work at other educational institutions may be entitled to transfer credit by presenting official transcripts from those institutions to be evaluated by the registrar’s office at 糖心logo入口. Coursework may be applied to degree requirements, or they may transfer as elective credit. Certain criteria must be met in the transfer credit evaluation.

Transfer credit requests must be submitted within the first semester of admittance to the DNP program. DNP students can transfer up to 9 credits from other graduate programs. Courses must be graduate level (500 + level) from a regionally accredited university with a grade of “A” or “B” for credit to be considered for transfer. Incompletes, audits, withdrawals, and “pass” grades will not be accepted. One quarter credit = ⅔ semester credit.

Graduation Requirements

In order to graduate with a DNP-NA degree students must:
  • Satisfactorily complete the DNP-NA program of study with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or above
  • Satisfactorily complete the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs (COA) required hours of residency and COA required number of various anesthesia cases
  • Satisfactorily complete the DNP scholarly project

Grading

DNP students must earn a grade of B or higher to satisfactorily pass a course.

The CON does not round grades to the tenth or the whole number. Final course grades will not be rounded. For example, a student’s final course grade is 82.97% and the final grade will be recorded as a B-. Faculty will not round up the grade to 83.00%.

Progression and Academic Standing

Students in the DNP program who earn lower than a B:
  1. A student must repeat a course with a B- or lower final grade. A student will only be allowed one course retake throughout the program of study.
  2. A student must complete all courses within one semester before progressing to the next semester. No future semester courses can be taken until the prior semester courses are all completed satisfactorily. This will result in an extension of time to a degree.
  3. A student may attempt the same course only twice.
  4. If the student does not earn an A or B grade the second time, the student will be dismissed from the program.
  5. Students who do not pass a clinical course will be dismissed from the program.

Remediation

To be successful, Nurse Anesthesia Residents (NARs) are expected to meet clinical residency objectives. If NAR performance indicates, “needs improvement” in the first two months of a residency course, this will be monitored by the program faculty and communicated with the NAR and clinical faculty. It will be expected that the NAR obtains “acceptable” performance throughout the last month of the course. If the NAR fails to do so, program faculty may place them on probation. In addition, a clinical probation may be instituted at any time during a clinical course if a NAR exhibits unsafe or “unacceptable” clinical practice, or fails to submit the required evaluations or program required documentation of professional licensure.

Clinical probation entails a 30-day period. During this time program faculty will re-evaluate the NAR’s status. NARs will communicate with program faculty and clinical faculty to develop a remediation plan based on their clinical evaluations, clinical faculty feedback, and/or program faculty findings. The plan will include strategies for improvement of clinical performance. After the 30-day probation period, the NAR will be re-evaluated by the program faculty to determine if clinical objectives have been met. If they are successful, they will resume their clinical residency at the same level of their peers. Failure to meet clinical objectives at that level will result in dismissal. NARs who have successfully met objectives of a clinical probation period and encounter subsequent performance issues may either be placed on a second 30-day probation period or dismissed from the program, in accordance with College of Nursing policies. If placed on probation, the process described would apply. The limit for all NARs is two (2) probationary periods. If performance issues continue to occur after a NAR has successfully completed two (2) probationary periods, the NAR would be immediately dismissed.

The clinical site for the probation period will be delineated by program faculty. NARs will not be allowed to take time off (except for sick time) during this period. All sick time off will be made up by adding it to the end of the probationary period.

Fieldwork/Capstone Rotations

Nurse Anesthesia Residents (NARs) will have five residency experiences as follows:

Residency 1 = 390 hours available
Residency 2 = 390 hours available
Residency 3 = 520 hours available
Residency 4 = 520 hours available
Residency 5 = 520 hours available
Total: 2,340 (COA requires 2250)

Additionally COA requires specific numbers of specialty cases, types of anesthesia, and lifespan considerations that will be achieved throughout the five residencies. NARs are responsible for tracking all case counts and types, and setting goals to achieve all needed case types.

NARs are responsible for their own housing during each 13 week residency. Initial residency placements across the curriculum will be throughout Oregon. As the program grows, there may be residency placements outside of Oregon.

Curriculum Plan

Complete the following:
This course focuses on the transition to advanced nursing practice and doctoral roles through examining philosophical and theoretical foundations of nursing knowledge. An understanding of middle-range theories relevant to practice knowledge and inquiry will provide the skills required for learners to become change agents in diverse healthcare settings. These skills will enable the APN to refine their own conceptual frameworks for doctoral inquiry. The identification of strategies and challenges in applying nursing knowledge in research and advanced practice will provide APNs with the necessary tools to enhance patient-centered care and program outcomes through quality improvement projects.
This course provides a thorough review of human anatomical structures and associated terminology. Nomenclature, location, and function of the main body systems will be discussed at the cellular, organ, and system levels. This course is the foundation for understanding the advanced practice nurse role in physical examinations of patients and the structural changes associated with illness and injury.
This course examines ethical, political and legal principles in healthcare through an advanced practice nursing lens. Learners will develop an understanding of how these principles influence accessible, equitable, and affordable care. Learners will analyze complex challenges confronting APN practice within the United States healthcare system using an ethical framework. Guided by 糖心logo入口 (GFU) and the College of Nursing鈥檚 (CoN) values, this course will emphasize the leadership role of the APN in health policy development. Effective interprofessional collaboration, nursing scholarship's influence on advocacy, and the regulatory, social and ethical environments affecting DNP practice will be addressed. Learners will explore concepts supporting advocacy for social justice, reducing healthcare disparities, enhancing access to care, improving quality of care, promoting ethical care, and containing costs within a professional practice environment.
This course focuses upon advanced knowledge and techniques for health assessment of patients across the lifespan, within the context of the advanced practice nursing role. Critical thinking, diagnostic reasoning, and communication skills will be developed through obtaining complete health histories and performing systematic physical examinations on simulated patients. Students will complete a head-to-toe physical assessment from memory utilizing current evidence-based practices.
This course focuses on normal human physiology and potential pathophysiological processes in the human body throughout the lifespan. Students will develop interventions and treatment plans for patients with alterations in their health status, within the scope of advanced practice nursing. Course content is organized by body system and will build upon the foundation of human anatomy understanding.
This course is designed to apply advanced principles of bioscience math, chemistry, and physics as they pertain to nurse anesthesia. This course builds on foundational knowledge previously acquired in these subjects. Emphasis is placed on the application of these concepts.
This course applies the principles of pharmacology, including pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and pharmacotherapeutics, in the exploration of common drug classes prescribed and utilized by advanced practice nurses. Molecular and cellular mechanisms of drug action will be reviewed with emphasis upon drug receptor activity, drug interactions, adverse reactions, and patient education.
This course examines health information systems and patient care technology to optimize health care delivery. Learners will analyze and evaluate health informatics and technology used to manage and improve health outcomes. Learners will demonstrate competency on the use and implementation of biomedical information.
This course is the first of two principles of anesthesia courses that provide an overview of nurse anesthesia foundational principles related to practice. Emphasis is placed on learning and applying introductory foundational skills, principles, and theories to the perioperative anesthetic management of patients across the lifespan.
This course provides learners with a comprehensive understanding of evidence-based practice (EBP) principles, methodologies, focusing on both qualitative and quantitative research traditions. The learner will demonstrate skills and knowledge needed to critically analyze, synthesize, and apply scholarly evidence for promoting high-quality evidence-based practice. Learners will formulate answerable questions essential for addressing quality and safety improvement across various advanced practice roles. Through systematic searches for research evidence, students will learn to translate and apply theoretical concepts into practical solutions for optimizing healthcare outcomes and solving practice problems. Learners will gain experience with applying principles of statistical inference and their application to the analysis and interpretation for answering advanced nursing practice questions.
This course is designed to prepare learners with essential skills to lead inter-professional teams focused on continuously improving the quality of healthcare and ensuring patient safety. Learners will gain an understanding of assessing and measuring safety and quality in healthcare settings, with a focus on developing, implementing and evaluating continuous quality improvement processes and programs. Strategies for implementing and managing change initiatives, resolving conflicts, and managing ethical dilemmas in healthcare will be discussed. This course covers methods for assessing the impact, efficacy and efficiency of interventions, including cost-benefit and cost-efficiency analyses. Specialized communication methods such as scorecards and benchmark reports are included.
This course provides the scientific underpinnings of the pharmacology and physiology required to plan and perform an anesthetic, to include the pharmacological management of patients across the lifespan during the perioperative period.
This course is the second of two principles of anesthesia courses that provide an overview of nurse anesthesia foundational principles related to practice. Emphasis is placed on learning and applying advanced foundational skills, principles, and theories to the perioperative anesthetic management of patients across the lifespan.
Complete the following:
This course examines current healthcare policy trends with the perspective of cultural humility, equity, and diversity in an ever changing healthcare environment. Learners will evaluate aspects of healthcare policy and their effect on population health. Current and potential roles of the nursing advocate and political activist to improve healthcare across the lifespan will be examined. Learners will engage in the process of developing and implementing health policy in the current political system.
This is the first in a two-course series on research for advanced practice nurses (APNs). This course equips the learner with the skills necessary to engage in quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. Learners will identify key philosophies, concepts, and techniques essential to both methodologies. Researchable clinical questions for APN will be explored and corresponding research methods selected. This course will introduce qualitative research designs, data collection techniques such as interviewing and observation, and qualitative data analysis procedures. This course builds upon the content from APNA 560 Evidence Based Practice
This course is designed to expand theoretical and clinical competencies in the anesthetic management of patients with coexisting and complex disease states across the lifespan. This course builds on the knowledge gained in the advanced anesthetic principles course and broadens pathophysiological disease concepts discussed in prerequisite coursework to determine evidenced-based anesthetic management methodologies.
This course is designed to develop critical thinking processes and theoretical and clinical competencies in the anesthetic management of patients across the lifespan undergoing complex surgical procedures. This course builds on the basic concepts and theory gained from prerequisite coursework.
This is the second in a two-course series on research for advanced practice nurses (APNs). Learners will demonstrate knowledge in selection of quantitative research design and in data analysis techniques suitable for acquiring and assessing evidence to address clinical issues. It covers a wide range of topics, starting from identifying research questions to examining and recognizing advanced research designs. This course delves into statistical principles such as descriptive statistics, probability distributions, sampling distributions, inference, hypothesis testing, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), as well as basic linear regression and multiple regression analysis. The emphasis throughout the course is on applying statistical concepts to analyze research in order to obtain the most credible evidence to uphold high-quality nursing practices. This course builds upon the content from APNA 560 Evidence Based Practice and APNA 610 Research Methods.
This course further develops advanced to complex foundational skills, principles, and theories to the perioperative anesthetic management of patients across the lifespan.This course includes the principles of anesthesia pain management related to practice. Emphasis is placed on learning and applying pain management techniques of patients across the lifespan.
This clinical course is devised to develop nurse anesthesia clinical competencies by applying evidence-based didactic knowledge and acquired simulation skills in a supervised residency. The nurse anesthesia students will learn to plan, implement, and manage a basic anesthetic through the continuum of care- from preoperative assessment to post-operative evaluation. During this clinical residency, students will care for actual patients across the lifespan. This course includes an expected minimum total of 375 clinical and simulation laboratory hours. Students are expected to complete these hours through a combination of simulated learning and healthcare facility partners clinical immersion.
This course focuses on the professional aspects of advanced nursing practice, economics and interprofessional collaboration. Emphasis is placed on applying historical, political, economic, healthcare, and organizational principles to formulate solutions to real-world practice issues and interprofessional collaboration.
This clinical course is devised to develop nurse anesthesia clinical competencies by applying evidence-based didactic knowledge and acquired simulation skills in a supervised residency. The nurse anesthesia students will learn to plan, implement, and manage a basic to intermediate level anesthetic through the continuum of care- from preoperative assessment to post-operative evaluation. During this clinical residency, students will care for actual patients across the lifespan. This course includes an expected minimum total of 375 clinical and simulation laboratory hours. Students are expected to complete these hours through a combination of simulated learning and healthcare facility partners clinical immersion.
This course prepares the learner with leadership theories and change management principles for roles in health policy analysis, organizational leadership, and interdisciplinary practice. Learners will examine strategic planning and management in healthcare. Learners are prepared for nursing leadership and management roles, utilizing skills of communication, conflict resolution, collaboration, and team dynamics in complex healthcare settings. Learners will identify methods to promote personal and organizational health and well-being.
Complete the following:
This clinical course is devised to develop nurse anesthesia clinical competencies by applying evidence-based didactic knowledge and acquired simulation skills in a supervised residency. The nurse anesthesia students will learn to plan, implement, and manage an advanced to complex anesthetic through the continuum of care- from preoperative assessment to post-operative evaluation. During this clinical residency, students will care for actual patients across the lifespan. This course includes an expected minimum total of 500 clinical and simulation laboratory hours. Students are expected to complete these hours through a combination of simulated learning and healthcare facility partners clinical immersion.
This is the first in a three-course series that ends with the implementation, evaluation and dissemination of scholarly work that demonstrates the student鈥檚 synthesis of the Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Practice Nursing (i.e., the DNP Essentials). The primary objectives of this course are two-fold: (1) to introduce the student to the essentials of scholarly writing and the logical presentation of ideas, and (2) to apply these essential skills to the development of a comprehensive proposal for the DNP project. Upon completing this course, students will demonstrate clinical scholarship by identifying a pertinent healthcare issue, conducting a thorough examination of existing evidence, selecting an appropriate project context, and developing a preliminary proposal for a project that synthesizes DNP coursework. Learners will design a plan for implementation and evaluation of the proposed project and submit an Institutional Review Board (IRB) application for approval. This course builds upon the content of previous courses, including: APNA 560 EBP, APNA 570 Quality and Safety for the APNA, APNA 610 Research Methods, and APNA 620 Research Design and Statistics for Data Analysis.
This clinical course is devised to develop nurse anesthesia clinical competencies by applying evidence-based didactic knowledge and acquired simulation skills in a supervised residency. The nurse anesthesia students will learn to plan, implement, and manage an advanced to complex anesthetic through the continuum of care- from preoperative assessment to post-operative evaluation. During this clinical residency, students will care for actual patients across the lifespan. This course includes an expected minimum total of 500 clinical and simulation laboratory hours. Students are expected to complete these hours through a combination of simulated learning and healthcare facility partners clinical immersion.
This is the second in a three-course series: Upon obtaining IRB approval, the learner will start the implementation phase of the approved scholarly project plan. This course provides the integrative practice experience necessary for improvement for advanced nursing practice and health outcomes. Learners will demonstrate their competency in resource management, time allocation, assessment, conflict resolution, and mitigation of implementation challenges; particularly through employment of communication and collaboration strategies. By the end of this semester, learners will exhibit their proficiency in executing the proposed project plan.
This clinical course is devised to develop nurse anesthesia clinical competencies by applying evidence-based didactic knowledge and acquired simulation skills in a supervised residency. The nurse anesthesia students will learn to plan, implement, and manage an advanced to complex anesthetic through the continuum of care- from preoperative assessment to post-operative evaluation. During this clinical residency, students will care for actual patients across the lifespan. This course includes an expected minimum total of 500 clinical and simulation laboratory hours. Students are expected to complete these hours through a combination of simulated learning and healthcare facility partners clinical immersion.
In this final DNP Project course, the learner actively engages in monitoring and analyzing the progress of the change project, evaluating key variables, making necessary adjustments, and discerning implications for future endeavors. Comprehensive scholarly reports, delivered both in written and oral formats, serve as platforms for disseminating and integrating newfound knowledge. These reports describe the chosen topic, tracing the project development and implementation journey. Learners will assess the project鈥檚 effectiveness in meeting the needs of the targeted population and evaluate project outcomes. The final project deliverables represent the learner鈥檚 proficiency in employing effective communication and collaboration skills. Successful completion and dissemination of the project validates the learner鈥檚 ability to assume leadership to effectively influence healthcare quality and safety.
This course focuses on the critical analysis and appraisal of clinical topics in preparation for the national certification exam (NCE). A review of nurse anesthesia material, application of theories and principles to various scenarios, and testing will comprise the content of this course. The student is required to take and pass the self-evaluation exam (SEE) exam offered by the NBCRNA.