Community Hospital Nurse Anesthetists are celebrating National Nurse Anesthetists Week, January 22-28. Providing anesthesia services at Community Hospital are Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) Connie Hill, Darrell Milhon and Lawrence Friestad.

Nurse anesthetists have been providing anesthesia care in the United States for more than 125 years. Nurses first provided anesthesia to wounded soldiers during the Civil War. Standing the test of time, there are now more than 33,000 CRNAs providing care to thousands of patients every day.

Although nurse anesthetists were the first anesthesia providers, much of the public is unaware that today CRNAs practice in every part of the country, deliver every type of anesthetic, and work in every setting in which anesthesia care is delivered. Not only are CRNAs a major provider of anesthesia care for the civilian population in the United States, they are the main provider of anesthesia care to American soldiers stationed around the world.

CRNAs must be ever vigilant. They must be aware of ever heartbeat, every breath, and be ready to respond if something isn't right.

Since the early 1980s, patient deaths related to anesthesia mishaps have declined from approximately two for every 10,000 anesthetics given to approximately one for every 240,000 anesthetics given.

This year, the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists celebrates its 75th Anniversary as a national organization.

  Some additional information about CRNAs:

• Anesthesia care today is nearly 50 times safer than it was 20 years ago.
• Approximately 43% of the nation's 30,000 nurse anesthetists are men.
• CRNAs are the sole anesthesia providers in approximately two thirds of all rural hospitals in the United States. (In some states, they are the sole providers in nearly 100% of the rural hospitals.