ACPAN Anaesthesia Certification is designed for practicing anaesthesia nurses to demonstrate their specialisation and compliance with practice guidelines of Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthesia (ANZCA) Statement on the Assistant for the Anaesthetist (PS08; 2016) and ACPAN Statements 3 and 4.
The process is suitable for Division 1 Registered Nurses, Division 2 Enrolled Nurses and Anaesthesia Technicians with a minimum of 1900 hours anaesthetics experience (completed within 3 years). Once the process is finalised you will be included as Anaesthesia Nurse in the ACPAN register which is accessible on the ACPAN website and visible for the public (Anaesthesia Technicians will be added to the same register but with the title credentialed Anaesthesia Technician).
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Complete successfully the online anaesthesia certification exams and download the certificates
To prepare for the certification exam, ACPAN has study resources available on their website (Resources tab in the main menu) and also courses available at the ACPAN Academy may be suitable for your preparation.
The anaesthesia certification exam consists of four sub-exams:
Each sub-exam is available on the ACPAN Academy, will take 15 minutes and costs $20. You will have to obtain an 80% pass for each sub-exam. After successful completion, you can download a certificate. You can take each sub-exam as often as you like, but each attempt will cost $20.
Before starting the sub-exams:
When passing all four sub-exams the first time, the total costs for anaesthesia certification will be $80.
Register your anaesthesia certification application:
Register your certification application on the ACPAN website (education tab at main menu). You will be asked to complete the following details: name, address, email address, phone number, AHPRA registration number and ACPAN membership number. Anaesthesia technicians can upload their TAFE certificate and register their ACPAN associate membership number.
Once your registration details are completed, upload all required documents to the ACPAN website:
Associate ACPAN members also have to upload their education certificates, e.g. TAFE Anaesthesia Technician certificate
You will receive confirmation of your certification application:
After uploading all documents to the ACPAN website, your application will be reviewed and you will receive a confirmation email of your successful certification application including your anaesthesia certification certificate. Your name will also be added to the ACPAN certification register which is visible for the public.
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Your certification will be valid for three years. After these three years, you can apply for recertification. The recertification process entails 5 steps:
Download the required documents from the ACPAN website:
Complete successfully the online anaesthesia certification exams and download the certificates:
Update your details
Upload all documents to the ACPAN website:
The content of the sub-exams are based on the ACPAN level 1 curriculum for anaesthesia nurses. The exam questions have been written by a large, representative group of experienced perianaesthesia nurses and are relevant to the current practice of anaesthesia nursing in Australia. Each question is referenced, reviewed and updated bi-annually. Continuous upgrading of the question bank and relevant references is a task not undertaken lightly by the ACPAN Board and a stringent process is followed.