Selected Podcast
Getting To Know Our Providers - Steven Knight
Meet Steven Knight, a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist at Memorial Hospital!
Featured Speaker:
Steven Knight, CRNA
Steven Knight, CRNA is a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist. Transcription:
Getting To Know Our Providers - Steven Knight
Steven Knight, CRNA: Hi, my name is Steve Knight. I'm a CRNA at Carthage Memorial Hospital in Carthage, Illinois.
I have an older sister that's an RN, and when I was about 20, I was kind of trying to figure out what I wanted to do and she said, well, how are your grades? And I said, well, they're not bad. She said, well, why don't you look into this? So that was my ultimate goal, was to go to anesthesia school.
Wasn't sure if I'd ever get there at 20, but she was kind of the ram rodder there. She kind of was my influence, I guess. I enjoyed my time as an RN, but anesthesia school was always my goal, so, that's how I kind of got there. And it's been a long time ago, but that, that's how that worked.
I have an associate's degree at Kaskaskia College in Centralia, Illinois, where I was able to get my RN license. And then I was with that license, I was able to work while I completed the rest of my schooling. Got my bachelor's degree at University of Illinois Springfield. And then my master's degree from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois.
It was a good path for me because I was able to work as an RN and make RN wages while I was finishing the rest of my schooling. It took a while obviously, to get both my bachelor's and master's degrees. So, I felt like that was the best path for me. I know a lot of nurses or a lot of nursing students, you know, go right into a BSN program and that's fine too. But, for me that worked well. And then again, I was able to pay my bills while I was going to school.
It just seemed like, for whatever reason at the time, and I don't know, not sure if it's still currently this way, but at the time it was kind of like CRNA school was kinda like the pinnacle of the nursing career. I know there's a lot of specialized nurses now, Nurse Practitioners and things like that.
But I think at the time that was kind of what the common thought was that, you know, if you really wanted to get where you wanted to be, like at the top of the career would be CRNA school. So, this seemed like there was a, you know, a lot of respect for the profession and obviously a lot of work and, uh, a lot of places hire needing anesthesia help at the time and, and still that way.
When I worked as an RN, I worked in a neonatal intensive care, you have intensive care experience to get into anesthesia school. When I graduated with my RN degree, adult ICU was not hiring new graduates, but the neonatal ICU was. So I contacted some schools and said, is will that be sufficient, to be able to get into anesthesia school?
And they said yes, neonatal ICU was okay. So, you know, there were busy days in the NICU obviously, so what kind of again, pushed me into wanting to get into anesthesia and surgery is that when you're in surgery and when you're giving someone an anesthetic, they are your sole responsibility.
You can line people up out in the hallway if you want, but we can only take care of one person at a time. And in nursing it's not always that way. In fact, it's rarely that way. You know, you've got five or six or 10 people needing something all at the same time. And that was kind of uh, I thought would be a good thing to be able to just be able to concentrate on one patient at a time and you know, and help them get through whatever it is they're trying to get through. And so that's what I really enjoyed about and I still enjoy about the profession again, I didn't know how it was all going to work out, but that's one of the things that really kind of influenced me was, you know, having really busy days as an RN and being just burned out at the end of the day.
You know, I'm just like, how am I going to go back the next day? It was just so busy and sometimes, you know, surgeries can be busy as well. Anesthesia can be busy as well. But again, it's just one, one patient at a time. For those of us that do what we do, it's not a big deal to work every day. But what I have to remember to tell myself is that for patients, it's a life event that they have never gone through again. Something, especially if it's like a major surgery, this is a big deal to them, even though it's not a big deal to us that are taking care of them because we do it every day.
So that's something that I have to try to remind myself and that I really try to just treat people the way I would want my family treated. And it's not that tough. It really isn't. If you just stand back and just say, how would I want my mom or dad or, or wife or someone like that to be treated in this situation?
And that's how I try to approach every patient. I've been married for 37 years to the best person that I know. We have two adult kids. My daughter is a nurse practitioner and she works, uh, in mental health. She has two little girls, they're three and two. I'm kind of smitten with those two. They live about 90 miles from us, so not too close, but not too far either.
And then I've got a son that's going to be a father here in a couple of months. That'll be our grandchild number three. And he's all excited. He'll be a good dad. So, I like to play golf even though I'm not very good and I try to get to the gym fairly often. I, I think it's important that, I, you know, try to stay as healthy as I can.
Kind of my philosophy is there's nothing you can do about aging. That's going to happen, but you don't have to be unhealthy. That's kind of a choice. So I try to, uh, live by that motto and try to keep healthy and just keep my heart working well. Other than that, enjoy being around my friends, playing golf and, and hanging out with my grandkids and my wife and putter around in the yard when I'm not busy trying to keep the yard nice.
I'm kind of a sports fan. From St. Louis originally, so I enjoyed the following the Cardinals and the Blues. So I do quite a bit of that, probably too much. Too much sitting in front of the TV watching sports. But, uh, it's what I enjoy.
So, we stay busy. Obviously the, there's really some really good people at Memorial, really good people in administration. It seems like it's just a real family atmosphere and I'm especially close with the people I work with in surgery, the surgeons are real, real good, real easy to work with. There's a camaraderie there.
People kind of support each other, look out for each other. It's a rural healthcare setting. I've kind of was drawn to that early in my career and I've, that's always what I've done. It requires that you take a lot of call, which is something that you, you know, you just have to know that that's what you're doing if you choose that path.
And that's really the overall thing. It's just, uh, the people there are really nice. And when I interviewed there, with my partner, you know, they were just real interested in having us. And it's worked out well.
Getting To Know Our Providers - Steven Knight
Steven Knight, CRNA: Hi, my name is Steve Knight. I'm a CRNA at Carthage Memorial Hospital in Carthage, Illinois.
I have an older sister that's an RN, and when I was about 20, I was kind of trying to figure out what I wanted to do and she said, well, how are your grades? And I said, well, they're not bad. She said, well, why don't you look into this? So that was my ultimate goal, was to go to anesthesia school.
Wasn't sure if I'd ever get there at 20, but she was kind of the ram rodder there. She kind of was my influence, I guess. I enjoyed my time as an RN, but anesthesia school was always my goal, so, that's how I kind of got there. And it's been a long time ago, but that, that's how that worked.
I have an associate's degree at Kaskaskia College in Centralia, Illinois, where I was able to get my RN license. And then I was with that license, I was able to work while I completed the rest of my schooling. Got my bachelor's degree at University of Illinois Springfield. And then my master's degree from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois.
It was a good path for me because I was able to work as an RN and make RN wages while I was finishing the rest of my schooling. It took a while obviously, to get both my bachelor's and master's degrees. So, I felt like that was the best path for me. I know a lot of nurses or a lot of nursing students, you know, go right into a BSN program and that's fine too. But, for me that worked well. And then again, I was able to pay my bills while I was going to school.
It just seemed like, for whatever reason at the time, and I don't know, not sure if it's still currently this way, but at the time it was kind of like CRNA school was kinda like the pinnacle of the nursing career. I know there's a lot of specialized nurses now, Nurse Practitioners and things like that.
But I think at the time that was kind of what the common thought was that, you know, if you really wanted to get where you wanted to be, like at the top of the career would be CRNA school. So, this seemed like there was a, you know, a lot of respect for the profession and obviously a lot of work and, uh, a lot of places hire needing anesthesia help at the time and, and still that way.
When I worked as an RN, I worked in a neonatal intensive care, you have intensive care experience to get into anesthesia school. When I graduated with my RN degree, adult ICU was not hiring new graduates, but the neonatal ICU was. So I contacted some schools and said, is will that be sufficient, to be able to get into anesthesia school?
And they said yes, neonatal ICU was okay. So, you know, there were busy days in the NICU obviously, so what kind of again, pushed me into wanting to get into anesthesia and surgery is that when you're in surgery and when you're giving someone an anesthetic, they are your sole responsibility.
You can line people up out in the hallway if you want, but we can only take care of one person at a time. And in nursing it's not always that way. In fact, it's rarely that way. You know, you've got five or six or 10 people needing something all at the same time. And that was kind of uh, I thought would be a good thing to be able to just be able to concentrate on one patient at a time and you know, and help them get through whatever it is they're trying to get through. And so that's what I really enjoyed about and I still enjoy about the profession again, I didn't know how it was all going to work out, but that's one of the things that really kind of influenced me was, you know, having really busy days as an RN and being just burned out at the end of the day.
You know, I'm just like, how am I going to go back the next day? It was just so busy and sometimes, you know, surgeries can be busy as well. Anesthesia can be busy as well. But again, it's just one, one patient at a time. For those of us that do what we do, it's not a big deal to work every day. But what I have to remember to tell myself is that for patients, it's a life event that they have never gone through again. Something, especially if it's like a major surgery, this is a big deal to them, even though it's not a big deal to us that are taking care of them because we do it every day.
So that's something that I have to try to remind myself and that I really try to just treat people the way I would want my family treated. And it's not that tough. It really isn't. If you just stand back and just say, how would I want my mom or dad or, or wife or someone like that to be treated in this situation?
And that's how I try to approach every patient. I've been married for 37 years to the best person that I know. We have two adult kids. My daughter is a nurse practitioner and she works, uh, in mental health. She has two little girls, they're three and two. I'm kind of smitten with those two. They live about 90 miles from us, so not too close, but not too far either.
And then I've got a son that's going to be a father here in a couple of months. That'll be our grandchild number three. And he's all excited. He'll be a good dad. So, I like to play golf even though I'm not very good and I try to get to the gym fairly often. I, I think it's important that, I, you know, try to stay as healthy as I can.
Kind of my philosophy is there's nothing you can do about aging. That's going to happen, but you don't have to be unhealthy. That's kind of a choice. So I try to, uh, live by that motto and try to keep healthy and just keep my heart working well. Other than that, enjoy being around my friends, playing golf and, and hanging out with my grandkids and my wife and putter around in the yard when I'm not busy trying to keep the yard nice.
I'm kind of a sports fan. From St. Louis originally, so I enjoyed the following the Cardinals and the Blues. So I do quite a bit of that, probably too much. Too much sitting in front of the TV watching sports. But, uh, it's what I enjoy.
So, we stay busy. Obviously the, there's really some really good people at Memorial, really good people in administration. It seems like it's just a real family atmosphere and I'm especially close with the people I work with in surgery, the surgeons are real, real good, real easy to work with. There's a camaraderie there.
People kind of support each other, look out for each other. It's a rural healthcare setting. I've kind of was drawn to that early in my career and I've, that's always what I've done. It requires that you take a lot of call, which is something that you, you know, you just have to know that that's what you're doing if you choose that path.
And that's really the overall thing. It's just, uh, the people there are really nice. And when I interviewed there, with my partner, you know, they were just real interested in having us. And it's worked out well.