Welcome to the Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist Website!
This site has been designed for access by applicants, enrolled students, college-based faculty, clinical site personnel and a variety of other partners of the program. As such, information in individual sections will be available to each group depending on need and confidentiality requirements. We hope you find our web-site helpful, informative, comprehensive and easy to navigate.
Our Philosophy of Learning and Success
It is the intent of our entry-level program to prepare graduates for the full scope of practice in nurse anesthesia in order that they be competitive in the marketplace by delivering the highest possible quality of care. Consequently, students will be involved in all aspects of anesthesia including general and regional techniques as well as cases involving conscious sedation and other ancillary services such as pain management, anesthesia for interventional radiology procedures and emergency airway management. Under close and immediate supervision, students will be responsible for the administration and management of virtually all specialty surgery categories and common invasive monitoring modalities for the full range of patient age and acuity levels.
At Samuel Merritt University, we manage the learning process as a shared enterprise between students and faculty; that is, we expect students to be highly motivated, responsible, self disciplined, focused and well schooled in the philosophy of graduate education. Faculty will consistently and expertly provide required learning opportunities and the guidance and instruction to fulfill the learning objectives of not only the program, but the student's personal interests and talents. Above all, we seek mature students who represent the highest caliber critical care nurse; ones who take full responsibility for delivering exceptional, intelligent and compassionate care.
How Our Graduates are Performing
Employers continue to rave about the preparation of our students. Most often they cite the comprehensiveness of their theoretical background and the range of their clinical expertise from the simplest to the most medically complex patient. 100% of employers noted that graduates were fully capable of independent decision-making and graduates rank their preparation far above minimum competency levels. Nearly 90% of our graduates are employed in the Bay Area and most at Kaiser Permanente facilities. We also have graduates practicing in other areas of the country and in the military.
What is most important is that all of our graduates are employed as Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists. The graduates themselves all reported that they were well prepared to enter the employment field as CRNAs and felt fully competent to assume their professional role. Check out their comments in the Faculty and Student sections of this site.
Program of Nurse Anesthesia Alumni Association
Established more than 15 years ago, our Program of Nurse Anesthesia (PNA) continues to be recognized as one of the premier educational programs in the country, producing top notch Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists. All PNA outcome measures of curricular quality and student satisfaction are consistently the highest across all programs at Samuel Merritt University. The university's state-of-the-art Health Sciences Simulation Center was funded and built in 2006 largely predicated upon the successes experienced by the PNA in simulation-based education. We are proud of our exemplary program and the roster of highly qualified, compassionate CRNAs who are alumni of Samuel Merritt University.In response to substantial interest expressed via recent surveys of our more than 215 program alumni, we are establishing the Samuel Merritt University Program of Nurse Anesthesia Alumni Association. Alumni associations provide wonderful opportunities to reconnect with old friends and colleagues; they also provide the structure and systems that promote professional networking; and importantly they can create a culture of support and mentorship for members of the new generations of the nurse anesthesia profession.
Read more about our newly established PNA Alumni Association. We encourage you to check the site often as we will continue to develop the organization's infrastructure and grow our membership.
Our Partnership with Kaiser Permanente Northern California
Our nurse anesthesia program was conceived as a joint venture between Samuel Merritt University and Kaiser Permanente Northern California in 1993 and a strong partnership between the two organizations flourishes to this day. More than half of our clinical affiliate sites are Kaiser Permanente Medical Centers, making a significant number of our clinical faculty the CRNAs and anesthesiologists of The Permanente Medical Group. Current students and graduates of the program consistently cite the outstanding experience and learning opportunities provided to them during the clinical component of the program as a major reason for their high degree of satisfaction with their education here at SMU.
If you would like to know more about Kaiser Permanente, you can visit their website or ask any of our faculty about this valued partnership.
Kaiser Permanente is awarding competitively $10,000 per year for 2 years ($20,000) to 20 applicants, foregiveable after graduation if you are employed by a Northern California Kaiser facility.
Before You Go Exploring
Samuel Merritt University is a small private institution of higher education one hundred-years old offering programs only in health related disciplines…that is our exclusive mission. We value timely, attentive and informed services for both applicants and enrolled students.
We know that you will be impressed by our faculty, our educational resources and the quality of education received at Samuel Merritt University. After all you are making a significant investment in your future and your choice of graduate program is critical. Now, take a look. We may be the perfect match!