Nurse Anesthetist Training Program Launches in St. Cloud

(KNSI) – Nurses in central Minnesota can now train to become certified registered nurse anesthetists without leaving the region.

Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota and CentraCare have partnered to bring a doctoral program for nurse anesthetists to St. Cloud. Classes for the first group of students began Monday, August 31st. The cohort is already full.

Five students make up the inaugural class: Jake Nelson, Logan Linhardt, Jaimie Haller, Matthew Girtz and Ted Baas.

Nurse anesthetists, known as CRNAs, give patients anesthesia during surgery. At most rural hospitals, they are the only anesthesia providers on staff. Without one, a hospital can’t perform surgeries or deliver babies. Patients have to drive somewhere else for care they used to get in town. The two organizations say hospitals across greater Minnesota have struggled to fill those jobs.

Until now, nurses seeking the degree usually had to commute to a metro-area medical center or move closer to one. They took classes there and logged their clinical hours there. The St. Cloud site lets them do both close to home, with rotations at CentraCare hospitals and other clinics around the region.

Saint Mary’s says the program has graduated more than 1,100 CRNAs since it started in the 1950s.

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