Model for a reproducible curriculum infrastructure to provide international nurse anesthesia continuing education

There are no set standards for nurse anesthesia education in developing countries, yet one of the keys to the standards in global professional practice is competency assurance for individuals. Nurse anesthetists in developing countries have difficulty obtaining educational materials. These difficulties include, but are not limited to, financial constraints, lack of anesthesia textbooks, and distance from educational sites. There is increasing evidence that the application of knowledge in developing countries is failing. One reason is that many anesthetists in developing countries are trained for considerably less than acceptable time periods and are often supervised by poorly trained practitioners, who then pass on less-than-desirable practice skills, thus exacerbating difficulties. Sustainability of development can come only through anesthetists who are both well trained and able to pass on their training to others. The international nurse anesthesia continuing education project was developed in response to the difficulty that nurse anesthetists in developing countries face in accessing continuing education. The purpose of this project was to develop a nonprofit, volunteer-based model for providing nurse anesthesia continuing education that can be reproduced and used in any developing country.