Finding Yourself in CAA Wellness | Wellness Wednesdays

Have you ever searched for wellness resources that truly understand what it means to be a Certified Anesthesiologist Assistant? You're not alone.

Wellness Wednesday debuts with a candid conversation about the unique challenges and opportunities facing CAAs in their pursuit of sustainable wellbeing. As I share my personal journey from burnout to balance, I reveal how my frustration with the lack of CAA-specific wellness resources became the catalyst for creating what our profession desperately needed.

Whether you're a practicing CAA, AA student, or prospective applicant, this episode marks the beginning of a community-centered approach to wellness that finally names and validates your experience. Welcome in. 

Attention AA Program Leaders and Educators. Learn More about bringing CAA Matters to your AA program HERE

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Wellness Wednesday is brought to you by
CAA Matters, the firstcomprehensive wellness and
professionalism curriculumdesigned to truly support the AA
student experience.
We all know AA education isstreamlined to produce competent
providers in a fast-pacedprogram.
Meanwhile, wellness andprofessionalism often get

(00:22):
overlooked, lumped in withmedical students or addressed
too late.
To help, caa Matters fills thisgap, centering student
anesthesiologist assistants andequipping them with the tools,
resources and mindset shifts tosucceed in school and build long
, fulfilling careers.

(00:42):
It's a turnkey curriculum,fully prepared, facilitated and
supported from planning todelivery.
Program leaders and AAeducators can learn more, read
reviews from early adopters andexplore piloting CAA matters at
awakenedanesthetistcom or byclicking the link in the show
notes.

(01:02):
Or by clicking the link in theshow notes.
Welcome to the AwakenedAnesthetist podcast, the first
podcast to highlight the CAAexperience.
I'm your host, mary Jean, andI've been a certified
anesthesiologist assistant forclose to two decades.

(01:23):
Throughout my journey andstruggles, I've searched for
guidance that includes my uniqueperspective as a CAA.
At one of my lowest points, Idecided to turn my passion for
storytelling and my belief thatthe CAA profession is uniquely
able to create a life by designinto a podcast.
If you are a practicing CAA,current AA student or someone

(01:46):
who hopes to be one, I encourageyou to stick around and
experience the power of being ina community filled with voices
who sound like yours, sharingexperiences you never believed
possible.
I know you will find yourselfhere at the Awakened Anesthetist
Podcast.
Welcome in.
Find yourself here at theAwakened Anesthetist Podcast.
Welcome in.

(02:07):
Hello Awakened Anesthetistcommunity.
This is your host, mary Jean.
Welcome to the AwakenedAnesthetist Podcast and to
Wellness Wednesdays, which is anew series here during season
five of the podcast, and Iwanted to take this initial
episode to kind of maybe debunkthree things about CAA Wellness,

(02:27):
or maybe three things aboutthese Wellness Wednesdays
episodes, so that we can all geton the same page and so that
you know where I'm coming from,and I hope you decide that this
is a high value place for you aswell, whether you're a
prospective AA, a studentanesthesiologist assistant or a
certified or retiredanesthesiologist assistant,

(02:50):
welcome.
I'm so happy you're here, I'mso happy you found this podcast
and have tuned in, so let's getinto today's episode.
Okay, the three things I wantyou to know about CAA wellness
are number one.
It's likely not what you think,and I just want to be very
clear about the way in which I'mgoing to be talking about

(03:12):
wellness here on the podcast, aswell as the curriculum that
I've designed the CAA Matters,professionalism and Wellness
Curriculum sort of the anglethat that takes, and kind of
tell you early and upfront likewhat this will not be.
And then the second point isthat I am allergic to

(03:34):
perfectionism.
Now I can tell when my body is,or like my mind or my old
habits are trying to makesomething perfect before I do it
, to make something perfectbefore I do it.
So I'm going to use thisWednesday episode to just lean
into all the parts of me thatare not perfect.
So I will explain a little bitmore about what that means and

(03:56):
what to expect there.
And then the third thing aboutCAA Wellness that I really want
to come across is that this isvery new for us.
We have almost zero wellnessresources outside of what I've
created on Awaken, the Nestespodcast, and outside of some of

(04:16):
the curriculum that AA programshave created on their own.
There are very, very, very fewresources that specifically name
CAAs or SAAs and there isalmost no research.
There was no research.
I've actually found two littlepieces of research that are like
one page each, but almost noresearch, compared to our

(04:41):
counterparts, anesthesiologistsand CRNAs, who just have reams
and reams of research andwellness resources and et cetera
, et cetera.
So this is new and I'm verypassionate about getting the
ball rolling.
So let me dive into a littlebit more about what that means.
So let me go back to the top.

(05:01):
The first thing is that CAAwellness is likely not what you
think or what we're going to betalking about here in the way
that maybe you're thinking aboutit.
So I really want to drive homethat wellness and lasting,
sustainable, sustainablewell-being maybe is a better

(05:24):
term is about slow, smallchanges, lots of little habit
formations.
There are no quick fixes.
There is nothing that I knowthat you don't already know.
Likely meaning.
There is not like some secretcode that I have that you don't.
I would say that this processstarted for me in 2018.

(05:49):
And and still is continuing.
I wouldn't say I've reachedsome like magical, perfect.
I'm like in homeostasis of this, like well-being, work-life
balance, but I am so much closerthan I was in 2018.
And that has again been a veryslow process of intentional,

(06:10):
small changes that I didn't evennecessarily know I was making,
but have accumulated and got meto a point where I am now where
I'm working one day a weekclinically and then I'm also
hosting Awakened Anestis podcastand I have created a wellness
curriculum that I have startedteaching, piloting to AA

(06:31):
programs as well as teachingoutright to the pre-AA community
, and so I have kind of gotwhere I thought I could never
get, which for a long time waseven working part-time.
I could never even imagine thatI could work part-time.
But it has been slow progress,slow changes, and it's only

(06:53):
really when I look back and Ican see, oh, that's what I did
to kind of get there and that'sthe part that I want to share on
this podcast.
So sort of the look back andsay like, oh, it was this piece
and this piece or it was thisnew idea that I found and
incorporated over six months andled to the next thing.
And so I really want to I don'tknow warn you maybe that this

(07:17):
is not about supplements or,like the latest and greatest
thing.
This is about an exchange ofinformation.
This is about curiosity thatI've had as I look into what
makes me feel better or maybewhat piques my interest, kind of
expanding my mind into newmodalities, things like
meditation and breathwork andhuman design and the Enneagram

(07:41):
and some pieces that not onething solved everything, but
learning little bits here andthere helped me put together my
best life, and so that's whatwe're going to be talking about
on the podcast and I'm sure Iwill refine that message as we
get going.
Which leads me into my secondpoint about CAA and wellness and

(08:02):
this podcast, which is theseepisodes are going to lean
really heavily into authenticity, to my real self, to this real
journey, to my real self, tothis real journey.
I'm kind of allergic to peoplewho make their lives feel
perfect or seem perfect and thentell you, oh, this is the way

(08:23):
to do it, or like, especially inthis wellness space or
self-care space, it was hard forme to see someone who was like
portraying that, like you know,having a huge put together house
and perfect children, and youknow, can't even like tell you
what it was now because it's sofar from what I like hold as

(08:44):
valuable.
But I just could tell that,number one, no one got what it
meant to be CAA or understoodwhat it felt like for me and
therefore their messages neverlanded.
And number two, I didn't wantwhat they had.
I didn't want this curated,perfect, like no failure life.
I wanted curiosity and, youknow, like a really intentional

(09:09):
life, and I wanted a slow life,which I kind of didn't realize
at first but definitely found myway into, and so that's what
I'm going to be bringing to you.
So I'm bringing, hopefully, therealest of real me, not that
I'm not myself on social mediaor on the other podcast episodes
, but you can already tell thatI'm trying to bring you guys

(09:33):
closer into my real, actual life, because that's where I want to
have these wellnessconversations from and, honestly
, this is part of like mydeepest, truest self, which is
this pull towards storytelling,this pull towards sharing like
an intimate moment where youknow you see me and I see you,

(09:54):
and having like a deepunderstanding of someone else's
experience through hearing theirjourney, and so I'm going to be
sharing authentically from thatposition.
I'm also bringing on guests whoare going to be talking about
maybe one of those things Imentioned, like human design or
the Enneagram or some sort ofpiece of wellness that maybe

(10:18):
you've been hearing floatingaround, but I'm going to take
that and ground that into theCAA experience, to my experience
with those modalities, andoffer that up to you.
So I'm really excited for theseepisodes and to see how they
all develop.
You are 100% seeing thebeginning of something.
So I also love to point outthat this is not like a final,

(10:42):
polished version and it's veryinteresting even to see that
progress over the podcast.
Like when I first sat down witha mic in 2020, I truly had like
a horrible head cold.
We were in my basement likeunder a blanket because we were
very like hyper aware of noisesand stuff.
Because our kids, of course, itwas 2020.

(11:03):
Our kids were home.
We had three little kids andthey were screaming in the
background and my husband and II started a podcast with my
husband initially were justexperimenting and like the pull
to do it was so intense that Ijust was like, no, I want to do
this right now, and that's kindof what these wellness episodes
feel like as well.
So welcome into the realestparts of me.

(11:27):
Okay, the third thing I want youto know about CAA wellness and
maybe the part that was the fuelor perhaps is still the fuel
we'll probably dive into thatmore is that when I started
teaching wellness to UMKC MSAprogram so the AA program here

(11:47):
in Kansas City I am no longer,but I had been for a very long
time adjunct faculty memberthere and in 2019, when I went
from full-time to part-time,they changed my hours because
the work that I was doing forthem I couldn't do, because I
wasn't in the clinic as much, Iwasn't in the operating room
teaching as much, and so theyasked me to sort of take over

(12:09):
this one three-hour wellnesslecture on substance use
disorder, which I happily did.
It was kind of right at thepoint of my life where I was
also diving into that innerlandscape.
I had just started finallylooking at some old wounds and
finding stories of people whowere like overcoming hardships
in their life, and I had alreadysort of started circling around

(12:31):
like the addiction and recoverycommunity in medicine because I
related so much to theirstories and anyway.
So it was like a perfectalignment.
I jumped in and from that point, realized that the curriculum
that I had been handed wasoriginally created for
anesthesia residents and it wasmeant to be delivered over their

(12:53):
four-year residency.
And while it had some valuableperspectives and education and
certainly it helped influencethose early beginning learnings
for me, I was pissed that itdidn't mention certified
anesthesiologist assistants, butyet we were using this to teach
our AA students, and it wasthat anger and I think I was

(13:18):
hurt.
I think I was upset and feltleft out and felt like no one
cares about me.
And I was also in a veryvulnerable place in my own life
where I had just basicallybegged my former employer, my
full-time employer, to gopart-time.
It felt like very professionalbegging.

(13:38):
I felt like I had given them abunch of options, like maybe I
could do it this way or this way, but I just really need to find
another solution.
I want to stay and they justcouldn't work with me.
They just couldn't it felt likefind the value in me as a
part-time employee as opposed toa full-time employee, even
though I had been there for like12 years and I was the chief
anesthetist or one of the chiefanesthetists and just really

(14:03):
would have thought they wouldhave wanted to keep me.
I think it tugged at that samehurt and so I just, you know,
had a fire lit under me and Iwas like absolutely not, like
you cannot tell me that I'm notvaluable.
And every time I saw anotherresearch study that listed just
CRNAs and anesthesiologists,because they're the only ones

(14:24):
who have research done on themreally?
And there is one.
There is a caveat there is oneresearch study that is on
certified anesthesiologistassistance and burnout, but it's
pretty sparse.
But anyways, I just got moremad and more mad and what has
developed is that I turned thatone three-hour class at UMKC AA

(14:48):
program into like a six-monthcurriculum and then from there
in 2023, left UMKC to take thatcurriculum and kind of expand it
in a way that would be valuableto any AA program, and so I'm
currently in the process ofpiloting what then became CAA
Matters the wellness andprofessionalism curriculum to AA

(15:11):
programs, like right now, likein two weeks.
I'm doing that and I've donethat this summer basically.
So I am all in on this.
I can tell that my uniqueexperiences, kind of where I
came from as a CAA and myunderstanding of what it means
to be a CAA because I'm from aCAA family and I just have a lot

(15:32):
of history, I guess, in theprofession I feel very
protective over us and I alsofeel very motivated to change
the landscape of CAA wellnessand finally give us some
resources that name us and aremade for us.
And you know there's otherthings I'm trying to do behind

(15:54):
the scenes that I'm absolutelygoing to share here because I
need your help, but maybe in adifferent episode.
So I think that's all I want tosay on this very first episode.
Again, I'm really excited forthis new format.
I'm excited to kind of bringyou a little bit closer into the
real me and I hope you enjoyedthis format.

(16:15):
You can share this episode witha friend if you loved it.
If you are watching me onYouTube, you can leave a comment
.
That would be awesome.
The YouTube platform isabsolutely new for me as well,
so you getting to see me is sortof another layer of
vulnerability and sort of tryingsomething new.

(16:36):
So I'm right there with you.
If you're a CAA or an SAA or aprospective who is putting
themselves out there, maybetelling someone they have a
dream of becoming a CAA, thatcan be really scary and
vulnerable.
That practice that you have isgoing to take you through the
rest of your career.

(16:57):
That practice and vulnerability.
I'm not saying that it's easy.
It took me weeks and weeks tofinally sit down and do this
first episode with you, but Idon't know.
I'm just grateful to be talkingdirectly to my CAA community.
I feel like you guys get it.
You get me and hopefully youfeel like I get you, and just I
hope you come back for anotherepisode.

(17:19):
So all right, let's talk soon,y'all.