Summer Check-in + 2 Announcements!

During this mid summer break check-in I announce the launch of CAA Matters, the first comprehensive professional development and wellness curriculum designed specifically for the Certified Anesthesiologist Assistant profession. After years of development, I'm piloting the program with 4 NSU AA programs and expanding offerings to both AA programs and Pre-Anesthesiologist Assistant students.

In this episode:

• Discovering almost no research or resources existed for CAA wellness
• Teaching a pilot program to four NSU AA programs starting in July
• Received over 100 applications for just three Pre-AA paid internship positions
• Enrolling now for a special version of CAA Matters specifically for the Pre-AA community

If you're an AA educator or program leader interested in bringing CAA Matters to your AA students, or if you're a Pre-AA student wanting to join the program, check the show notes for sign-up links or email [e-mail] for more information.

Book a CAA Matters Discovery Call

You can now text me! Questions/Suggestions

Sign up to learn how you can join the first Pre-AA cohort of CAA Matters and get a rare head start in AA school. Learn More

+Check out my Pre-AA Highlight on IG

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to AwakendAnestes podcast.
While on summer break, I'm yourhost, mary Jean.
I am a longtime certifiedanesthesiologist assistant.
I am the host of AwakendAnestespodcast, the creator of CAA
Matters, the first and currentlyonly comprehensive professional

(00:20):
development and wellnesscurriculum designed for AA
students to be delivered in AAprograms.
I'm also a wife, a mom, I'm ameditator and probably some
other things that I haveforgotten to share, but I am
here because I have an excitingoffer that I thought would be

(00:40):
worth coming on the podcast andsharing a little bit more about,
as well as maybe a littlesummer check-in as well, as I am
diving into video podcasting.
So I am figuring out how toedit a video podcast and have it
match up with the audio podcast, which has always been the part

(01:01):
that's really kept me fromdoing it, because I thought I
had to edit the audio file twice.
But I'm pretty sure I havefigured it out, and so this is
going to function as a test runas much as it is me kind of
checking in with you all.
So I hope your summer is goingwell.

(01:21):
I have three school-agedchildren an 11-year-old boy and
two girls who are nine and seven.
They are in their final fewdays of summer school for the
girls, and then we have my11-year-old boy in a whole bunch
of camps.
So I'm actually home right nowalone.
I have just interviewed one ofmy process guests whose episode

(01:42):
will come out in season five ofAwaken S's podcast, which starts
in the fall of 2025.
So it really doesn't launchuntil end of September 2025.
And then her process episode isgoing to come out in November,
but she has an impending duedate with child that.
We wanted to be sure that shehad her interview recorded

(02:05):
before her brain goes a littlefoggy, so I'm coming off of that
.
I am also a couple weeks reallya week and a half before the
first pilot program launches ofCAA Matters.
That's the professionaldevelopment and wellness
curriculum that I have createdfor AA schools.
I am offering it, I'm teachingit, to four of the NSU schools,

(02:31):
so all four campuses besides theDenver location, so that's NSU
Tampa, nsu Orlando, nsuJacksonville and NSU Fort
Lauderdale AA programs, and I amreally, really excited to get
to do that.
Finally, this is something I'vebeen thinking about and wanting
to do and talking about foryears and years.
I actually taught wellness as alecture series at the UMKC MSA

(02:57):
program when I was on adjunctfaculty.
There I taught many things, butmy last several years at UMKC
was teaching wellness as I wasentering my own phase of trying
to become more well and reallyescape that impending burnout
that I felt coming as afull-time CAA, long-time CAA.

(03:18):
At that point it was in forlike 12 years and I just fell in
love with the type of learningthat can happen in a small
environment like in an AAprogram.
I also, frankly, was pissedwhen I saw that there were no
wellness resources designed forcertified anesthesiologist

(03:39):
assistants or students or anylevel of us.
I have a stack of researchthat's like this high and now I
can show you because we're onvideo podcast and there's one
single sheet of paper like frontand back that mentions CAAs.
It was actually a study onburnout with CAAs and that's it.
There is no mention of us inany of the copious wellness

(04:01):
research, all of the researchthat was done on substance use
disorders and anesthesia, whichis a prevalent problem we're
actually the number one medicalprofession that struggles with
substance use disorders and Icould go on and on, but it just
got me.
Frankly, you know I was mad, Iwas embarrassed, I felt like why
does no one care about us, like, why have we been left out?

(04:22):
Why are there no CAAs who aredoing research or trying to
learn more about maybe ourunique struggles or maybe our
unique you know, the things thatmake us more resilient, perhaps
to burnout Like we don't knowanything about us because no
one's ever looked and so and Idecided that that was probably

(04:46):
or.
At the time I thought, hey, thisfeels like something I'm meant
to do.
This feels like my nextiteration of my career.
At the same time, I wasthinking of coming down from
full-time work and looking towork part-time and looking to
invite in some other aspects ofwhat it means to be a CAA.
And fast forward six years.
That was really starting in2019.

(05:08):
Fast forward six years.
I'm four seasons down from thepodcast.
I'm about to start the fifthseason.
Caa Matters is finally launchingafter years and years of
tweaking and working andthinking, and, you know, being
scared to launch it and thenthinking no one wants this and
then thinking it doesn't matter,if no one wants this, I have to
do this anyways.
And then figuring out marketingand building a website and just

(05:31):
all of the things that go intoa big dream just took so much
longer than I could have everimagined, and yet I kept going,
because this is something thatis meant to come out of me and
meant to be offered to this CAAcommunity.
So I just launched right inthere, didn't I?

(05:51):
But I'm here to say that I havetwo offerings.
So if you are an AA educator, aprogram leader, someone who is
an adjunct professor like I wasfrom an MSA program and your AA
program needs a bulk up or needsany level of professional

(06:12):
development, slash wellnesscurriculum, maybe you have a
class here or there, maybe youhave one guest speaker who comes
and speaks about, you know,burnout, or speaks on substance
use disorder, but you don't havesomething that's cohesive and
also is longitudinal over thecourse of a year-long commitment
for your AA students.

(06:34):
I want you to go to the shownotes and sign up right now to
receive more information on howto bring CAA Matters to your AA
program.
I mentioned a 12-monthcommitment, but right now, the
team and I are offering atwo-month pilot program for CAA
Matters that's pre-built and canbe easily implemented into any
schedule.

(06:54):
So go to the show notes, signup to learn more.
I'd love to book a discoverycall with you just to talk about
what CAA Matters can offer yourprogram, how it can enhance any
offerings you already have andreally elevate your program to
the next level.
Give AA students what we trulydeserve, which are the tools and

(07:14):
resources and consistent effortinto helping them become their
best selves as human beings andas CAAs.
And finally, if you happen to bea pre-AA and you are watching
this now or listening to this onaudio podcast, I was absolutely
blown away maybe now about amonth and a half ago when I put

(07:38):
a call out on Instagram forapplications for a pre-AA
internship for CAA Matters.
So I cannot run CAA Mattersalone.
I knew I needed some help and Iknew I needed interns to help
me facilitate the execution ofCAA Matters.
It's a virtual course and thedelivery of it needs to be

(07:59):
seamless and engaging so that wecan create the type of
connection that really createstransformation in this class and
program.
And so I knew I needed help andI knew I wanted the pre-AA
community to be the ones who hadthe opportunity to help, simply
because this is so specificallydesigned for CAAs and I know

(08:21):
how hard it is as a pre-AA toget that direct experience into
the profession to understandwhat it's going to look and feel
like and I thought, well, thisis great, the interns can work
alongside me, they'll get tomeet AA students as I'm teaching
it and they're helping tofacilitate, and everyone will be
able to sort of get somethingof high value from this.
Well, you guys, the Pre-Acommunity, completely blew me

(08:45):
away.
I had over 100 applications forthree paid internships and I
was stunned to hear number onehow committed you all are to the
CAA profession, to becoming thebest CAAs and becoming the best
applicants that you can be, andhow difficult it's been to

(09:06):
connect directly with CAAs.
Of course everyone's strugglingwith shadowing hours and just
how it feels like you're kind ofon the outside of the CAA
profession like knocking one toget yourself inside and how you
saw that as such a huge valuethat I was providing to sort of
be looking for pre-A interns.
And so I thought you know Ihave some time between this

(09:30):
pilot program I'm offering inJuly, the Awaken Anestis podcast
season five, restarting inSeptember or starting up in
September, and then, as I'mgearing up to teach the full
curriculum of CAA Matters latethis year and early 2026, I
thought I think there's sometime in there that I can give

(09:51):
CAA Matters a review and make itfor pre-AAs.
So take some of that languageand add a little bit more detail
so, if you're not a current AAstudent, you'll understand why
receiving critical feedback canbe so overwhelming as an AA
student, or why boundaries areso important, or all the many

(10:13):
ways that you can manage stresswhile you're giving anesthesia,
like not while you'renecessarily, you know, I don't
know coming down off somestressful exam or something, but
how do I manage stress in theoperating room?
And I could offer the pre-AAcommunity really a glimpse
inside what it's going to feellike as CAAs, what it will feel

(10:34):
like as AA students becauseyou're taking an AA program
course, a course that's designedfor graduate level MSA programs
, and I just thought you know, Ithink I can do this and I want
to do this and it felt like thepre-A community would really
benefit from having thisinformation as early as possible

(10:55):
.
This wellness, thisprofessional development
information, is only morehelpful the earlier you have it,
and I just think there's somuch value that you can gain as
a pre-AA to understand why youwant to be a CAA.
It's gonna allow you to have abetter handle on the language
and know what it's gonna feellike.
So when you go to the interviewor you're discerning between,

(11:18):
do I really wanna be a CAA ornot, this program is going to
give you the tools, theresources, the insight to be
able to feel really good aboutyour decision, as well as feel
really confident when you walkinto your interview for your
number one.
A program top choice that I'msure everyone will get.

(11:38):
And if this is you, if thissounds interesting to you, if
you're a pre-AA student, youdon't have to be.
You know, applying right nowyou can be.
You can be a year or two awayfrom applying.
The pre-AA community is kind ofa wide swath of people who are
interested in becoming CAAs andare maybe wanting to learn a
little bit more, all the way upto people who are actively

(12:01):
applying to AA school.
This is something you can puton your resume.
This is something you canreference in your interview.
This is something that is goingto give you really high value
touch points into the CAAprofession.
So there's going to be a linkfor you in the show notes as
well.
You can also follow me onInstagram.
I've created a pre-AA CAAMatters highlight that as the

(12:24):
enrollment opened.
I've been sort of sharing somemore and explaining things and
sort of taking you all behindthe scenes so you can check out
that highlight.
You can DM me, of course, onInstagram your questions.
You can email me atawakenanesthetist at gmailcom
and you can always sign upthrough the link that is in the
show notes to receive more emailinformation and, yeah, I just

(12:48):
hope that it finds the rightpeople.
If you are an AA educator andleader, please follow that
instinct right now.
If you think, hey, this couldbe interesting, we kind of you
know maybe we've been strugglingto find the right way to teach
this to our students.
I have years of practicebringing self-care and bringing
professional development downinto the tangible level, so

(13:11):
we're not sort of grabbing atstraws, but we're really making
transformative change at the AAprogram level.
Yeah, so please just followthrough if this sounds
interesting to you.
If you're pre-AA and thissounds interesting, please do
the same.
I think that's all I want to say.
I'm going to go try to editthis video and I hope you all
again, have a wonderful summer.

(13:32):
If you are in the throes ofapplying to AA school right now,
best of luck to you.
I feel like I'm, on this, asimilar path right now, where
life is asking a lot for me andI just have to step up to the
plate because this is what Iwant.
So we're both going out thereand getting exactly what we want
, and I'm excited to be herewith you all.
All right, we'll see you inSeptember and I hope to talk

(13:54):
before then.