Expanding Nurse Anesthetists’ scope of practice will not improve access to surgical care in rural areas (and why this idea is like a bad sequel)

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Expanding Nurse Anesthetists’ scope of practice will not improve access to surgical care in rural areas (and why this idea is like a bad sequel)

Dr. Asha Padmanabhan, MD Do you remember the movie, Jurassic Park? It was based on what seemed like a brilliant idea: clone dinosaurs. It seemed a good solution —until, of course, everything went horribly wrong. It turns out, letting velociraptors roam free wasn’t just dangerous; it was also a spectacularly bad plan for solving humanity’s problems. Expanding the scope of practice of Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) feels a lot lik…