Another place to locate a CRNA is AOL people directory, provided you are an AOL subscriber. On your navigational tool bar, just click on "People”, then "Member Directory." Next, on first text field line, type in “CRNA” and you will find hundreds of CRNAs who are already in your own backyard. If you are not an AOL subscriber, check to see if your ISP has a searchable membership directory and find other members in a similar fashion. Send a member or two same introductory note mentioned earlier. This may be time consuming, but going through nursing school and getting an advanced degree, only to find it is not for you, is both equally cost and time consuming. So save yourself some time, money, and peace of mind. Becoming a CRNA is an investment.

Nursing associations, in which your specialty area is affiliated with, usually function on a national and local level. Here are two examples: on national level, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, http://www.aana.com/, and on local level, Alabama Association of Nurse Anesthetists, http://www.ala-crna.org/.

It's important to note, these are not only CRNA focused nursing associations, they are merely cited here as examples. Study their respective websites and contact them to see if you can attend their next meeting. Tell them a little about yourself and interests in profession, and that you'd be interested in sitting in on a meeting or attending an upcoming event, as a guest. The national associations have local affiliates, so find out where nearest affiliate is and give them a call or send email. The worst they can say is "No." If you don't receive a favorable response, try another organization, even if you aren't interested in specialty area. Remember idea is to gain some experience, and more knowledge about profession of nursing.

If you get to attend one of organization's meetings or functions, you will surely meet nurses who have changed specialty areas at some point in their career. Therefore, interacting and mingling will benefit you greatly. If you were interested in another specialty area, here is an ANA (American Nurses Association) link to Nursing Organizations: http://www.nursingworld.org/affil/.

Online nurse focused discussion forums are another place worth investing some time in. You can ask same open ended questions mentioned earlier. Or you can read message threads of those who have already asked similar questions about getting into nursing. Remember, you don't have to be a nurse to read or participate in most forums. Also, you may run across some discussions from disgruntled message posters, but don't let this discourage you, this is another person's experience. You are not in their situation. You don't have all of facts. For all you know, person may not even be a nurse. Be objective when you read posts in nursing forums. A good place to start is All Nurses website, http://www.allnurses.com, since it has one of largest number of participants in nursing forums.

Contact your local hospitals and other employers that hire nurses, and ask to speak with human resources or personnel manager. The manager will be able to provide you with information on nursing and may be able to connect you with one of their employees who would speak with you about profession.

The last task you need to complete is to try to volunteer at a hospital or nursing home. You don't have to commit to a lifetime of volunteering; many organizations need volunteers to sit with patients or residents as companions. Volunteering in mail department of any facility won't help, so concentrate your efforts on volunteering in a patient care setting, and then you can have a direct visual of nurse-patient interaction. This experience will be invaluable for you.

Now, if you have a busy schedule and you're saying, "I don't have time to volunteer," there's another alternative for you. Contact your local community college and college or university's school of nursing. You can ask them to put you in contact with a first & second year student at community college and a freshman and senior student and college or university. Spend a day with them in school. Due to liability issues, you probably won't be able to go on clinical rotations with senior student, but that student can inform you of what can be expected and you can attend a class or few for day. Find out how many courses student is enrolled in and how much time is spent on studies. Remember, this will vary with each student and educational institution.

All of this data and experience should be collected and completed at least six months to a year before you decide to apply to nursing school. The Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) title was used merely as an example and any aspect of this career research can be applied to any person seeking information on how to career research for becoming a nurse and wishing to practice in any specialty area. Before you actually start applying to schools and taking entrance exams, as you can see there are many ways to do your research on nursing as a profession. In addition to researching schools, reading career books, taking aptitude tests, talking to family and friends in profession; these combined reality experiences will help you to become better informed and prepared for decision you will make. Best wishes with your nursing career.

At same time, you need to be able to read level of “buy in” from other person. They may say they’re going to do project, call person, raise annual fund 100%, buy your product, or give you a promotion “some day,” but, since 90% of most communication is nonverbal …wouldn’t it be better if you have studied Emotional Intelligence?

AT-HOME APPLICATION

Our work is important to us, but our home is where we live. If your relationships at home aren’t going well, nothing at work will matter. And sad thing is, most of time if you aren’t get along at one place, you aren’t at other. Why? Because we don’t leave “ourselves” behind when we leave for work in morning.

This is not to say applications are same – because an intimate relationship is different from a work relationship, but only in some areas. Increasing your intimacy and parenting skills is part of emotional intelligence. Couples who communicate better have better marriages, and one of best things you can give your children is knowledge of Emotional Intelligence and good modeling of emotionally intelligent behavior.

MULTICULTURAL APPLICATION

Walk in any office today, or any family gathering, and you are going to have people from different cultures, yes? This means you can no longer predict how people are going to behave. In one culture, you show up on hour. In another culture, you show up 15 minutes late. In still another, it’s an hour late. These cultural differences affect our daily lives more all time, and strong Emotional Intelligence skills are required in order to manage them.

BEING IN THE KNOW

As more people learn about Emotional Intelligence, it’s going to be important that you stay in loop. Get in early. It’s emotionally intelligent thing to do!

HOW TO LEARN EQ?

One of most important things to understand about Emotional Intelligence is that, unlike some other life skills, it can’t be learned ONLY be reading. There are Internet courses you can take, and books and ebooks you can read, but you need to work with someone such as a certified Emotional Intelligence coach who can guide learning process.

It’s difficult to change something you can’t see clearly – and we don’t see ourselves as others see us!

Yes, time usually brings improvements in area of Emotional Intelligence, but you can greatly accelerate learning curve, with great benefits to your life.

HOW TO BEGIN?

Taking an EQ assessment is a logical starting point - http:/ inyurl.com/z94t . Don’t be surprised to see that you’re better at some competencies than others. The ones you are lower in can be raised, because EQ can be learned!

©Susan Dunn, MA, The EQ Coach, http://www.susandunn.cc . I offer coaching, distance learning, and ebooks around emotional intelligence for your continued personal and professional development. Transition, career and relationship coaching. Mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc for FREE ezine.