Alescia DeVasher Bethea, PhD, CRNA, APRN

Dr. DeVasher Bethea joined the Nurse Anesthesia Department as the Department Chair and Program Administrator in 2012. She earned Associate and Baccalaureate degrees in Nursing from Southern Adventist University, a Master of Science with a focus in Nurse Anesthesia from Middle Tennessee School of Anesthesia (MTSA), and a PhD in Education from Capella University. Her first CRNA job was with a small anesthesia group in a community hospital and a small rural hospital, where she had significant autonomy and was a clinical preceptor for nurse anesthesia students. Subsequently, she worked at the VA Medical Center in Nashville for over nine years, providing anesthesia to patients with multi‐organ system diseases for various procedures in an anesthesia care team model. Dr. DeVasher Bethea began teaching nurse anesthesia part‐time at MTSA in 1996 and then expanded her educational involvement to include initiating and growing the simulation program and committee leadership. In 2005, she became a full‐time administrator and faculty at MTSA and served as the Associate VP for Institutional Effectiveness and SACSCOC Accreditation Liaison, as well as the Assistant Program Administrator. She is also an onsite reviewer for the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs.