Why CRNA exams are so much harder than nursing school | Real Talk 

I'd like to contribute a bit of my perspective as just a way to unload and pass on some advice to others that I picked up through my program. A bit of background: I am in a front loaded program and about to take my last final before residency. Luckily, the remainder of my program will not include any additional didactic portion, only residency and writing my doctoral paper. No more tests (thank god)! Any grade in our program less than an 80 is failing and the amount of material covered on each test is usually quite a bit. I will end up with two Bs in the didactic portion of my program, but expecting to graduate with an overall GPA of 3.88 (Summa Cum Laude in my program.) FIRST LESSON: IF YOU THINK YOU KNOW THE MATERIAL, BUT CAN'T TEACH SOMEONE ALL THE MATERIAL FROM MEMORY ALONE, YOU DON'T KNOW IT WELL ENOUGH The first exam I took was an eye opener. Simple cellular structure, organelle functions, electrolytes, etc. that seem to be covered in every nursing class as if on repeat. Simple right? Wrong. My score on the first exam was a 72% (one of the two classes I ended up with a B in.) The class was structured with 5 exams, each worth 20% of the overall grade. Where in nursing school, one might simply guess the right answer if you didn't know it, this is not possible. EVERY QUESTION WAS BASED ON APPLIED KNOWLEDGE. You either know it or you don't. No longer were 'select all that apply' questions comprising approximately 5-10% of a test, these questions were now approximately 75% of every exam. On top of that, each question was a scenario with between 4-8 potential answers to decide from. No partial credit. But this scare was what I needed for me to take the program seriously. The solution for most of my class: dictating EVERY word said in lecture and studying it to the point of being able to repeat it, draw out every step of models, and teach it back,. Anesthesia requires knowing how, at a cellular level, a drug is absorbed, distributed throughout the body, knowing how it effects the target organ, and the biochemical processes that occur within the cell as a result. The beauty of this is that it leads to a very firm understanding of what response is expected when a drug has a similar mechanism of action and how the interactions of other drugs and chemicals may increase/decrease the effects. Where nursing was mostly memorization, expect application of the sciences as a CRNA. SECOND LESSON: TIME MANAGEMENT I would consider myself to be a fast learner. In my BSN, I'd skip class a lot and get away with studying the day before a test and get an 'A' (humble brag, I know). This was not possible in my CRNA program. And while everyone is different, the professors of our program told us at our orientation that the average amount of time a successful student spent studying PER DAY, was 12-14 hours, and this was the case for me. Including weekends Although, others may chip in if they had a different experience, as this may have been due to my program being a front loaded program. I wrote this mainly to give a realistic expectation of the time commitment necessary, but also to say that you cannot devote all of your time to studying. Life is about balance and you need to find it while in a CRNA program. There will be sleepless nights and all night coffee driven study sessions. Honestly, my advice is if you can't set enough time aside to exercise or spend time with others, then sacrifice some of the study time to do so. And work is possible in some programs, but I'd say forget it. In my program, there was only one semester that was slow enough to allow students some time to pick up some shifts, and even then it was 1 or 2 days per month. THIRD LESSON: STRESS MANAGEMENT It is VERY easy to get caught up in studying and making it literally the only thing you do, but you have to make time for yourself, family, and friends. Also, YOU HAVE TO HAVE ENOUGH TIME FOR REST. The stress of CRNA school will have your adrenals pumping out cortisol non-stop, and you have to make time to destress. I didn't take this seriously (of course) and by my second semester, I started to feel the effects. For me, the constant stress led to me having weakness in my shoulder and neck muscles to the point that I literally had trouble holding my head up. I'd have a sensation of falling every now and then. At one point, I was shaking so hard that I couldn't put the food I was eating on a fork and into my mouth. I originally thought I was coming down with Parkinson's or MS, but the symptoms only came just the week before a test. Don't underestimate it. With every test having the potential to knock you out of a program, and each test becoming more and more difficult, the stress WILL begin to wear down even the toughest of people. FOURTH LESSON: EXPECT EVERYTHING TO BE COMPREHENSIVE In anesthesia, every topic is related. Concepts learned at the beginning will be used to build on new topics. The good thing is, just like in nursing, a career will always start off hard, but become routine the more you use it. That being said, in my program, this was reflected in the tests. In the 4th semester, suddenly on one of the tests, it seemed like we were back in the second semester. Things we didn't see for 8 months now comprised 20/100 of our test questions. Although we didn't see it for so long, these questions seemed somewhat easy, but it was surprising to see them again, to say the least. FIFTH LESSON: LIFE WILL CONTINUE WHILE YOU ARE IN SCHOOL, AND NOT ALWAYS IN THE BEST WAY, I cannot understate this, HAVE A GOOD SUPPORT SYSTEM IN PLACE BEFORE YOU BEGIN. Life is a roller coaster, with good times and bad times coming and going, but never staying in one place for long. EVERY person in my class has had struggles. Many lost family members. I personally lost my aunt and uncle, and almost lost my mom and grandma in the timespan of 2 months. If I didn't have my wife, I would have failed out. A classmate of mine lost her dad, made a 60% on an exam, had her husband diagnosed with cancer, and is now helping her husband again after the cancer came back from remission. There are many sacrifices one makes to go to CRNA school, but schools and professors will work with you during bad times. You don't have to give up the last moments you may have with a loved one. Just remember to keep moving forward and keep those supporting you close. I just tell my wife that when it's all said and done, I will take her on a nice vacation anywhere in the world she wants...And maybe to the Louis Vuitton store... and Tiffany's (currently over my shoulder telling me d**n right I better.) Anyway, those are things I thought I would share. I have 3 more days to study for my last comprehensive final. Good luck and I hope my comment helps someone.

Sounds intimidating. Hoping to apply by next year. I’ll just do my best..

I’m a BSN student and my program so far hasn’t been as challenging as I heard it would be. We are required to make a B to pass and a lot of the exams are SATA heavy though! I think I might put in slightly more effort than my peers, but i’ve been coasting through really. I think this style of learning might set me up well for CRNA school in the future if I pursue that :)

Put in a few hours per nursing school exam. Closer to 50 hrs + as a SRNA.

My nursing school teachers don’t teach. It’s all self learning and 78% and higher to pass.

New ICU nurse here binging your videos lol

Big shoutout to Western Rise for sending me these pants and supporting the channel! Here's a link to their site if you want to check them out westernrise.com/BoltRNBSN

I had an algebra 2 teacher in high school who did the same exact thing. She was the only one who did that and I would get so mad at her, but then realized that she was only preparing me for my future.

30 questions primarily SATA!? that sounds terrifying. I feel like i'm a good test taker but even then thats just a few oopsie errors into doing very poorly.

do you recommend any program that prepares you for the crna school?

Hi Bolt A recent New Grad RN here from Fiji 🇫🇯 I was wondering if foreigners like me will have to sit for the NCLEX and get to be able to get into CRNA School ? Do you have any friends with similar experiences ?

Hey there Dr. Bolt CRNA, I was wondering what your thoughts were regarding Nurse RNFAs? Are you often scrubbing with RNFAs and OR nurses? Can an RN-BSN become an RNFA or do they need more certifications?

I'm a second year nursing student and 90% of the time I don't study for an exam until the night before and I still get A's almost every time. Nursing school is stressful and demanding, but not near as much as I've heard CRNA school is. Thanks for the video! 😊

Hey bolt, I saw a few posts recently that a couple of ppl got into CRNA school with only a year of ICU experience. Is that possible? I always thought it was 2 years minimum.

Was nursing school hard for you? I have straight As in my 3rd quarter out my 8th. But I study any chance I get. I know I want to be a CRNA but don’t know if I’ll cut the educational part.

Wow yea I don’t think I can pass crna school now

CRNA is that one highest lvl job class that everyone in the mmo has at least one of. An Anaesthesiologist would be a popular one too and people would debate which one is better like in real life 😝 Careers kinda remind me of a game I used to play years ago called Maplestory. At the beginning you are a noob who has to build up skills, then at a certain lvl you choose only one category of a job class: warrior, mage, thief, bowman. Then those 4 classes branch into all sorts of "jobs." The higher you level up, the more abilities, money, and damage you inflict. And your title also changes like Night Walker, Paladin, Bishop etc lollll. Other jobs are better than others and more popular. Just like in real life, except real life is way more challenging!

The amount of people bragging about not putting in all their effort and passing is wierd. Why would you brag about that? "Hey I didn't try my best and I passed the test so why bother?" You guys are going into a field where potentially people's lives are on the line, the last thing I want is someone being my nurse that didn't give it their all and still passed.

We need one titled “Why med school exams are so much harder than CRNA exams” 🙈😫😭

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