Alison Henry joins School of Nursing to lead new nurse anesthesia program

When Alison Henry, CRNA, DNPc, MSN, was starting her nursing career as a cardiac step-down unit nurse in North Carolina, she aspired to become an acute care nurse practitioner.

That was until she started to get to know the daughter of one of her patients, who worked as a certified registered nurse anesthetist, or CRNA. She asked Henry about her future career plans, and when Henry told her she planned to become a cardiac NP, her response was, “You don’t know it yet, but you want to be a CRNA,” Henry recalled.

Henry accepted an invitation to shadow her at work on a day off, and it changed her career path. More than a decade after that interaction, Henry now serves as Chief CRNA at Golisano Children’s and Strong Memorial hospitals, and the director of the School of Nursing’s upcoming CRNA program.

The School aims to welcome its first CRNA cohort in Summer 2027, pending accreditation by the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs (COA).

Read the full story on the URMC Newsroom.