Questions to Ask a CRNA When Shadowing
Questions for a shadowing day with a nurse anesthetist: what to ask between cases about room setup, monitoring, supervision, call schedules, and the route into anesthesia school, plus when to stay quiet.
The questions
Open any question for the note
How did you get here? What were you doing as a nurse before anesthesia school?
Why ask it
A straightforward opener that also gives you a benchmark for your own record. Ask which unit, for how long, and whether they would choose the same critical care background again, since that answer is directly useful to your application.
What time did your day start, and what did you do before the first patient arrived?
Why ask it
Pre-case work, machine checks, drawing up drugs, reviewing charts, is invisible to visitors and takes up a large part of the morning. Hearing it described tells you what the job is when nothing is happening.
What are you checking as you set up the room?
Why ask it
Ask this while they are doing it and you get a live explanation of the machine check, airway equipment, suction, and backups. Notice how much of the routine exists to cover a failure that is rare but immediate.
How did you decide on the plan for this patient?
Why ask it
The reasoning connects the chart to the choices: airway assessment, comorbidities, the surgical plan, the patient's own preferences. Ask what would have changed the plan, which is where the thinking actually shows.
What are you watching on the monitor that I would not notice?
Why ask it
You will hear about trends rather than single numbers, and about the relationship between several values at once. Ask what would make them intervene now versus keep watching.
What did you say to the patient before we came in, and why in that order?
Why ask it
The pre-operative conversation is a clinical assessment and a reassurance at the same time. Ask what they are listening for in the patient's answers, and what they avoid saying.
How much of a case is routine, and where does your attention concentrate?
Why ask it
Induction, emergence, and position changes are usually the answer. Understanding that the workload is uneven rather than constant is one of the more useful things a shadowing day can teach you.
Who else is involved in this room, and who makes which decisions?
Why ask it
Ask about the working relationship with the surgeon, the circulating nurse, and the anesthesiologist if one is involved. It is the clearest way to understand where the role's authority begins and ends.
How does supervision work here?
Why ask it
Practice models vary by state, by facility, and by payer rules, so what you see today is one arrangement rather than the arrangement. Ask what it is here, and how it differed at their previous job.
What happens when a case goes badly?
Why ask it
Ask about the process rather than for a story: who is called, what is prepared in advance, how the room changes. If they offer an example, let them tell it their way and do not press for detail about the patient.
What is the hardest part of this job that has nothing to do with medicine?
Why ask it
Expect scheduling, staffing, turnover pressure, documentation, or friction with a particular service. These are the things that make people leave, and they rarely appear in career descriptions.
What does your call schedule look like, and how do you sleep?
Why ask it
Ask for the pattern: how often, how long, whether it is in house, and what the next day looks like. Night and weekend coverage is the part of the job most likely to shape the rest of your life.
Which kinds of cases do you like, and which do you dread?
Why ask it
The dislikes are more informative, whether it is long spine cases, pediatric airways, or a particular surgeon's list. It also shows how much variation exists inside what looks from outside like one job.
How long did school take, and what did it cost you, financially and otherwise?
Why ask it
Ask about both. Most graduates will describe years without a salary, relocation for rotations, and the effect on relationships, which is the honest cost picture no admissions page provides.
What do you wish you had known before you applied?
Why ask it
This usually produces something concrete about the application, the interview, or the first year of the program. Ask them to be specific about what they would do differently rather than what they would advise in general.
Which parts of your critical care experience helped you most in school?
Why ask it
You want to know which skills transferred: managing drips, reading hemodynamics, being the one who calls it. It tells you how to spend your remaining ICU time deliberately rather than just accumulating months.
What continuing education has actually changed how you practice?
Why ask it
Recertification requirements are one thing and useful learning is another. A specific answer tells you where the field is currently moving; a vague one tells you the requirement is being met and little more.
What do people misunderstand about how your role differs from an anesthesiologist's?
Why ask it
Ask it as a question about misunderstanding rather than about hierarchy and you will get a measured answer. Expect it to cover training routes, scope, and how the two roles overlap in practice.
What would make you leave this job?
Why ask it
The answer is usually about scheduling, staffing ratios, or a change in the practice model rather than about the clinical work. It is a realistic look at what makes an anesthesia post sustainable or not.
If I want to do this, what should I do in the next year?
Why ask it
Ask at the end of the day, when they have had time to form a view of you. Specific instructions, a particular unit, a certification, a course to retake, are worth far more than general encouragement.
Shadowing in the operating room
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
When to ask and when to stay quiet
Stay silent during induction and emergence
These are the busiest and least forgiving parts of the case. Watch, note your question, and ask it later. The same applies to any moment where the room goes quiet or people start moving faster.
Ask between cases and during turnover
Room turnover, the walk to the next case, and the break room are where most of a shadowing day's real conversation happens. Save your longer questions for these gaps.
Ask permission once, at the start
Say that you have questions and ask when they would prefer to take them. That one sentence prevents most of the awkwardness of a shadowing day.
Follow every instruction immediately
If you are asked to move, step out, or stop talking, do it without asking why. You can ask afterward, and often the answer is itself the lesson.
Practical conduct
- Confirm in advance what the facility requires: identification, immunization records, a confidentiality agreement, and what to wear.
- Arrive early enough to change and to be shown where you may and may not stand.
- Keep behind the anesthesia machine and well clear of the sterile field. Ask where your feet should be before the patient arrives.
- No photographs, no notes containing patient details, and no discussion of anything you see once you leave the building.
- Introduce yourself to the patient only if invited, and step back during their conversation with the anesthetist.
- Eat and use the bathroom when told to. There may not be another chance for hours.
- If you feel faint, say so and sit down on the floor where you are rather than walking out.
What to watch for, beyond the questions
- How much of the work is preparation and documentation compared with intervention.
- How the anesthetist speaks to a frightened patient in the minutes before induction.
- Who they call for help, how quickly, and how that request is received.
- How the room handles a delay or a change in the surgical plan.
- Whether the day has natural pauses, and what happens to them when the list runs late.
Afterward
- 1Write your notes the same evening, keeping them free of anything that could identify a patient.
- 2Send a short thank you note naming one specific thing you learned from them.
- 3Ask, once, whether they would be willing to answer questions when you apply. Do not ask for a recommendation on the day.
- 4Log the date, the facility, the hours, and the supervising anesthetist, since programs often ask for a record of shadowing.
- 5Write down what you disliked as well as what you enjoyed. A day that made you certain about only the good parts was not a useful day.