University of New England

School of Nurse Anesthesia

My name is Tami Wilson, and I am a University of New England nurse anesthesia student in the graduating class of 2005. I am originally from Massachusetts. I have been a nurse since 1990, and I have been working in a cardiothoracic ICU since 1995.

In 2000, I moved to Maine where I worked in the Cardiac Surgical Recovery Unit at Maine Medical Center. I had reached a point in my career where I felt that I needed more of a mental challenge as well as more autonomy in my practice. In 2003, I applied and was accepted to the UNE School of Nurse Anesthesia.

The program at UNE is front loaded where the first nine months consists of a didactic portion and the remainder of the 27 months are spent in the clinical setting. I feel that this is the best type of program because I entered the clinical setting with a solid knowledge base, which I am now able to integrate into clinical practice. I feel the instructors at the UNE School of Nurse Anesthesia are absolutely the best. They are not only knowledgeable, but they are also extremely supportive and encourage us to strive for excellence.

Currently, I am at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor for my clinical experience. It is a difficult adjustment to go from being an expert clinician in your current area of practice to starting over as a novice in a new area of practice. Now after almost three months of clinical, things are starting to fall into place. I have had a wonderful preceptor who is very patient and has made the adjustment period a little easier. I have done some very interesting cases and have learned a great deal.

I have also been working on my senior research project. I am doing a prospective, double blind research study on post-operative nausea and vomiting in high risk patients at EMMC with another classmate and the chief of the Anesthesiology Department. It will be presented to the next meeting of the Institutional Review Board for approval. It is my hope that at the conclusion of the study that it will be able to be published in order to further the profession of nurse anesthesia in the academic research arena.

After graduation, I plan to remain in Maine. Maine has the mountains as well as the ocean and a lifestyle that is “the way life should be.” Overall, my experience at the UNE School of Nurse Anesthesia has been the most challenging of my life, but also the most rewarding. I feel that it is both an honor and a privilege to have the opportunity to become a member of the wonderful profession of nurse anesthesia.