Nurse anesthetists have been administering anesthesia to patients in the United States for over 150 years, ever since the Civil War.
The credential CRNA (Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist) came into existence in 1956. CRNAs are anesthesia professionals who safely administer more than 40 million anesthetics to patients each year in the United States, according to the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) 2017 Practice Profile Survey.