School of Nursing

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It gives me great pleasure to announce that DNP: Nurse Anesthesia - Lifespan concentration has been granted a 10- year continued accreditation through Spring 2034 by the directors of the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs (COA). This program is a full-time 36-month curriculum with coursework and clinical experiences across the lifespan and prepares UTC DNP Nurse Anesthesia students for the national certification exam offered by the National Board of Certification and Recertification for Nurse Anesthetists. After completing this program, and achieving their certification, our graduates work immediately as certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) and can handle any situation thanks to the dedication of the faculty and their robust program of simulation. Addressing the shortage of CRNAs makes what this program offers even more important. The accreditation just confirms that an outside organization recognizes the excellence in education that our faculty provides for the students.
 
Dr. Linda Hill and her faculty have put together an amazing program evidenced by the high pass rates (92.3% for 2023) on their first attempt. I feel that another reason this program is so successful is that the faculty work in area facilities providing anesthesia which keeps them immersed in that discipline.
 
The first Doctor of Nursing Practice students started in January 2022 and graduate in December 2024. Dr Hill says that they are all excited to see this first cohort complete all courses, clinical experiences and that important DNP project. She also says that the faculty took that opportunity to develop courses that give our students the ability to learn content that is really important to today’s practice. It allows them to expand as we all learn more things about health care such as peripheral regional anesthesia which now has an entire course dedicated to this area – unique in nurse anesthesia education. 
 
It is well known that the UTC nurse anesthesia students have clinical experiences in larger Chattanooga-area hospitals as well as smaller outlying rural community hospitals and in our distance campus in Tupelo, MS. They are caring for patients across the lifespan. This means our students capably provide anesthesia from newborns (sometimes premature infants) to those at the end of life.
 
The new Dorothy and Jim Kennedy Health Sciences Building will have a dedicated simulated OR and Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) which will enhance their simulation experiences even more and allow our traditional BSN and our Adult Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner students to have interprofessional simulations that will benefit every student.
 
Congratulations to Dr Hill and the faculty in the UTC School of Nursing Nurse Anesthesia Concentration!

-Chris Smith

The baccalaureate degree in nursing, master's degree in nursing, Doctor of Nursing Practice and post-graduate APRN certificate at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (http://www.ccneaccreditation.org).

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) to award bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees.