UTC nursing anesthesia students and faculty participate in a central line workshop. Photo by Angela Foster.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga/Erlanger Health System Nurse Anesthesia Concentration has achieved a significant milestone, being granted a 10-year continued accreditation through spring 2034 by the directors of the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs (COA).
The COA recognized the School of Nursing concentration for providing graduate-level curriculum leading to the award of a Doctor of Nursing Practice.
“The directors of the COA are particularly pleased to offer their congratulations to everyone at the program who has demonstrated their commitment to meeting the requirements for continued accreditation,” COA Chief Executive Officer Francis Gerbasi said in his notification letter to UTC. “Please accept the COA’s congratulations on the program’s performance in achieving maximum accreditation status.”
The UTC Nurse Anesthesia program offers a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree through a full-time 36-month curriculum. Rigorous coursework with extensive clinical experiences prepares UTC DNP Nurse Anesthesia students for the national certification exam offered by the National Board of Certification and Recertification for Nurse Anesthetists.
Once certified, UTC graduates may begin work immediately as certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNA).
School of Nursing Director and UTC Chief Health Affairs Officer Chris Smith said the continued accreditation is a testament to the program’s unwavering commitment to providing high-quality education in the field of nurse anesthesia.
“There is such a shortage of certified registered nurse anesthetists in the state and the country, making this a critical program,” Smith said. “We have had a track record for decades of providing an excellent education for our students who graduate from our program and are ready to go to work immediately. They can handle the most critical cases the day they walk into their new position in the hospitals.
“The accreditation just confirms that an outside organization recognizes the excellence in education that our faculty provides for the students.”
Over the last five years, 93.3% of enrollees in the UTC nurse anesthesia program graduated—while 92.3% passed the National Certification Exam on their first attempt.
“Dr. Linda Hill has a team of practicing CRNAs, so they are current in best practices,” Smith said. “Because of that, our students leave here ready to go to work without missing a beat.”
Dr. Linda Hill
Hill has been the program coordinator and administrator of the nurse anesthesia concentration since coming to UTC in 2005. This marked the second time the concentration earned 10-year accreditation under her direction.
When she first arrived at the University, the nurse anesthesia concentration was a master’s program. During her time overseeing the program, Hill has helped shepherd the transition to the DNP curriculum.
“We were approved and started our first group of Doctor of Nursing Practice students in January 2022. Our first doctoral cohort graduates in December, so we’re pretty excited about that,” said Hill—a nurse for 37 years and nurse anesthesia educator for 27. She was inducted as a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology in 2022.
“It was a major undertaking to do that,” she continued, “but we took that opportunity to develop courses that gave our students the ability to take courses that are really important to today’s practice. It allows them to expand as we learn more things about health care.”
One example, Hill said, is a peripheral regional anesthesia course. Students get a whole semester dedicated to it instead of a limited number of lectures.
“That’s very relevant,” she explained, “because peripheral regional anesthesia is so much a part of our practice that CRNAs can go out and perform. It prepares them for being able to step into any practice setting.”
Hill noted the ability of UTC nurse anesthesia students to get clinical experiences in larger Chattanooga-area hospitals as well as smaller outlying rural community hospitals “to get experiences they can’t get here.”
“I think what’s really great about this program is that the majority of our clinical experiences for our students are local,” she said, “and when you’re in a much smaller hospital, you have to approach things from a very different perspective.
“You have to be very independent. You’re practicing learning how to be involved with not only the surgeons and have that strong link of communication but also becoming familiar with and collaborating with hospital administration. That makes for a very different perspective.”
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