Webster’s Strength in Science Attracts Nurse Anesthesia Students
Program’s first male African-American graduate looks forward to an exciting career

Walter Smith

Webster’s M.S. in Nurse Anesthesia program continues to attract a stream of applicants for a limited number of openings. As explained in depth when Global Thinking last featured the program, the “lucky” winners are accepted into an intense 2.5-year program that entails some 78 credit hours and 1,400 hours of administering anesthesia.

It’s not for the faint of heart, but it is a program for the skilled nurse who is serious about science and drawn to the latest advances in health care.

That includes nurses like Webster graduate student Walter Smith, whose commitment to the field is matched only by his devotion to his family and his faith.

‘Nurse anesthesia is prestigious, but it’s also fun. Having someone like me
do it for a living is like paying a kid to go to recess.'

Smith first looked into nursing when he was just 19, with an eye toward a steady career to support a healthy life and family. His focus immediately turned to advancing in the field as far as it allowed.

“I always liked science,” he says. “But in nursing, I saw that right away I could get involved and work my way up.”

“You can branch off in a lot of different directions in nursing,” Smith explains. “But nurse anesthesia is essentially the highest branch. It’s prestigious, but it’s also fun. It’s just fun for me – having someone like me do it for a living is like paying a kid to go to recess.”

If the flexible hours, the fun, and the chance to help people drew Smith to the nurse anesthesia field, it was Webster’s reputation as a science-based program that drew him to apply to Webster’s nurse anesthesia program, where he will become the program’s first male African-American graduate in March 2009.

“I’d heard a lot of good things about Webster,” he says. “I knew the science focus was an integral part of the program. The nuts and bolts of the program focus heavily on the actual science of it, so there’s a big learning curve once you start. Every nurse anesthesia program is challenging and hard to get into, but this one is great. I was very glad to get the chance to do it.”

‘Everybody makes sacrifices to go through this program, but it’s worth it.’

Among the program’s intense features is the cohort of peers that surrounds a student for its first nine months.

“We’re all like a family,” Smith says, with a laugh: “I mean, there are squabbles like in any family, but we all get along. See, those first nine months, you’re spending four days a week together, so the life commitment, the time commitment, is huge. Everybody makes sacrifices to go through this program, but it’s worth it.”

Smith looks at his wife and two sons and thinks they agree. It’s their support and his Christian faith that have helped him get through the program. All that remains for him is graduation and board exams this summer.

Then it’s off to the field, where he already has a good taste thanks to the clinical field experiences in Webster’s program.

“The clinical sites Webster chooses really teach you well. They really tell you what to do,” he says. “Some are involved in audience-based research to help improve the profession. Several really push advancing the profession, so they’re at the cutting edge. Every site is very appropriate to what’s going on in the field.”

A mix of urban and rural clinical sites exposes Webster graduates to every angle in the field.

“At rural sites, nurse anesthetists have a lot of autonomy, so in a short amount of time you see the full spectrum of what they can do in their profession,” Smith says. “For example, now the field is moving toward using ultrasound in a lot of different ways, so I received full exposure to those methods.”

With graduation in March, Smith already has a position lined up at a St. Louis hospital, which he is eagerly awaiting.

“The first nine months of this program, it’s nose to the grindstone,” he says. “After that, it levels off a bit so you can breathe. Now, I’m just ready to get out there and get going.”