The Very Rev. Fr. Jeremiah Loch, PhD, DO (MP), CRNA’s 52-year career as a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) began as a young boy when he delivered newspapers inside Saint Joseph’s Mercy Hospital in his hometown of Pontiac, Michigan. Fascinated by the doctors and Catholic priests at the hospital, he began down a path that led him to first become a CRNA, then a priest in the Eastern Orthodox Church. 
“I’ve always been attracted to two pathways, that of the priesthood and the other pathway of medicine,” Loch said. “I met a CRNA who inspired me to follow a CRNA track. When I was considering the field, I found a definition that said anesthesiology is the art and the science of the treatment of pain and suffering, and that definition really stuck with me.”
In the early 1970s, he became one of the first CRNAs in the United States to start doing nerve blocks. He later started a pain clinic at Kishwaukee Hospital in DeKalb, Ill. and began teaching other CRNAs the art of pain management. When he was in training, he said the majority of CRNAs—except for military CRNAs—were not trained in any regional anesthesia techniques.
He sought out training from various hospitals and found a physician anesthesiologist at Chicago Osteopathic Hospital who invited him to come to the hospital to learn about spinals, epidurals, peripheral nerve blocks, and other techniques. Upon his return to DeKalb, Loch began incorporating these techniques into his practice.
He also studied pain medicine at Emory University with physician anesthesiologist Dr. Steven Brena, who became a friend and mentor. In 1998, he began practicing pain management full-time on an outpatient basis. Currently, he focuses on managing the pain of cancer patients, even occasionally making house calls for those patients.
“I haven’t done this alone. I’ve worked with some other CRNAs who have been very active in terms of advancing the specialty of pain management within nurse anesthesiology practice. I think it’s been a very rewarding participation with some of the other CRNA leaders in pain management that I’ve been involved with,” he said.
In addition to his work as a CRNA, he holds a diploma in osteopathy from Osteopathic College of Ontario as well as a PhD in religion and health sciences. In 1994, he was ordained to the priesthood in the Eastern Orthodox Church. He has written a book about his two careers in nurse anesthesiology and the priesthood called Confessions of an Unorthodox Priest with a revised edition forthcoming.
“I don’t introduce myself as a priest in my clinical setting, but for many people it becomes apparent in one way or another,” Loch said. “Maybe it’s just the way I interact because of that type of influence, but it just seems like a lot of times people will end up divulging some deep things that lie at the base of their pain—at the base of their own soul.”
As he looked back at his over five-decade career, he reflected on the deep fulfillment the practice of nurse anesthesiology has brought him.
“I remember an osteopathic physician I knew as a child, and he told me once that he was never happier than those times when he was really helping someone. I’ve found that to be true for myself. In particular, being able to discover where a pain problem may be coming from and doing something to relieve it. It brings me a sense of great inner fulfillment.”