CRNA jobs

What does a CRNA do on the job?

The job is the whole anesthetic, not one piece of it. Across a case that breaks into three phases:

• Before. Chart review, patient interview, airway assessment, and building the anesthetic plan for this specific patient and procedure.
• During. Induction, securing the airway, titrating agents, and managing ventilation and hemodynamics as the surgery changes what the patient needs.
• After. Emergence, extubation, handoff to recovery, and managing post-operative pain and nausea.

Regional anesthesia is a large part of the role too: spinals, epidurals, and peripheral nerve blocks. In obstetrics, placing labour epidurals can be most of the day.

Where do CRNAs work?

What hours do CRNAs work?

This is the biggest quality-of-life variable in the profession and it swings hard by setting. Ambulatory centres often run predictable weekday hours with little or no call. Hospital positions usually carry some mix of call, weekends, and overnight coverage.

Common structures are four ten-hour days, three twelves, or a standard week with rotating call. Trauma and obstetric coverage carry the heaviest call burden. When you are comparing two offers with similar pay, the call schedule is usually the difference that actually matters.

Do CRNAs work independently?

Depends on the state and the facility. Some CRNAs practise fully independently, especially in rural and critical access hospitals where they are the only anesthesia provider. Others work in an anesthesia care team alongside anesthesiologists.

A number of states have opted out of the federal physician supervision requirement, and practice patterns differ substantially between them. One thing worth knowing when you job hunt: facility policy can be more restrictive than state law permits, so the state you are in does not fully determine the autonomy you will actually have.

How much do CRNA jobs pay?

Median $212,650, mean $214,200, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics May 2023 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey. Highest-paid nursing specialty BLS tracks.

Rural and independent positions frequently pay above metropolitan care-team roles, because they are harder to fill. Our salary by state breakdown has the figure where you plan to live, and how much do CRNAs make covers how pay moves with setting and experience.

Where do you find CRNA job openings?

To be straightforward about it: we do not list job openings. The CRNA Club is a platform for people getting into CRNA school, so this page explains what the job is rather than advertising vacancies we do not have.

For actual postings, the AANA career centre is the main professional job board, and most large health systems post anesthesia positions directly. Locums agencies carry a lot of the rural and independent work. And a meaningful share of first jobs come from clinical rotations during school, which is one practical reason to weigh clinical sites when you choose a program.