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Awakened Anesthetist
This podcast is for Certified Anesthesiologist Assistants, AA students, and anyone hoping to become one. As a CAA, I know how difficult it can be to find guidance that truly reflects our unique perspective. I created Awakened Anesthetist to be the supportive community of CAAs I needed on my own journey.
Every month, I feature CAA expanders in what I call my PROCESS interview series. I also create solo episodes that weave in themes of wellness, self-discovery, and mindful growth - offering insights and reflections that resonate with our high-pressure, high-responsibility lives. Through it all, you’ll discover the power you hold as a CAA to create a life by design, not by default. I know you’ll find yourself here at the Awakened Anesthetist podcast.
Awakened Anesthetist
[PROCESS] Making the Right Call ft. CAA + Professional Referee Genesis Perrymond
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I am thrilled to introduce, Genesis Perrymond, a practicing Certified Anesthesiologist Assistant and professional referee?!?! (think NBA)
If you are in this CAA community and have been looking for inspiration to pursue your own very niche dream, then you have come to the right place! Lean in because this is the PROCESS of Genesis Perrymond.
Connect with Genesis
A HUGE Thank You to my Season 5 PROCESS sponsor, Harmony Anesthesia Staffing.
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Welcome and Timeout
SPEAKER_00Welcome back to the Awakened Anesthetist Season 5 Process Series where certified anesthesiologist assistants, students, and aspiring CAAs come together to explore what's truly possible in this profession. I'm your host, Mary Jean, and through these conversations, we expand our vision of what a CIA can be and do, and what it means to live a life by design. Today's guest embodies that idea. We're joined by Genesis Perimond, a practicing CAA since 2020, who's used the flexibility of this career to pursue a bold, unexpected passion, becoming a professional basketball referee. You'll hear how Genesis made that leap and the powerful overlap between emotional intelligence and split-second decision making, both in the OR and on the court. If you've ever questioned, perceived limitations, or felt called to define success on your own terms, you're going to want to lean in. This is the process of Genesis Parimond. Before we jump in, I want to briefly orient you to something new you'll be hearing woven throughout this episode. This season's flagship process sponsor is Harmony Anesthesia Staffing. Rather than me telling you what Harmony is like, you'll hear directly from a current Harmony Locums CAA contractor. You're about to meet Keisha, a longtime CAA, as she shares what she wishes every CAA knew before considering locums and what it's actually like working with Harmony for the past five years. It's an honest CAA to CAA conversation designed to give you real information and space for your own discernment. And if you find yourself curious about whether locums could support the kind of career you want to build, you can schedule your free, no pressure, 15-minute conversation with one of Harmony's CAA founders, Rad or SESI. The link is in the show notes. All right, let's meet Keisha and then we'll step into our latest process episode.
SPEAKER_02Hi, my name is Keisha Wilkerson. I am a CAA from Georgia. I graduated from Emory University in 2010, so I've been practicing for 16 years. I've been with Harmony for five years now, almost, I guess, going on six years, and I'm enjoying my stay here.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Awakened Anesthetist Podcast, the first podcast to highlight the CAA experience. I'm your host, Mary Jean, and I've been a certified anesthesiologist assistant for close to two decades. Throughout my journey and struggles, I've searched for guidance that includes my unique perspective as a CAA. At one of my lowest points, I decided to turn my passion for storytelling and my belief that the CAA profession is uniquely able to create a life by design into a podcast. If you are a practicing CAA, current AA student, or someone who hopes to be one, I encourage you to stick around and experience the power of being in a community filled with voices who sound like yours, sharing experiences you never believed possible. I know you will find yourself here at the Awakened Anestus
Meet Genesis Perrymond
SPEAKER_00Podcast. Welcome in. Well, I'm telling before we hit record how excited I am just to hear your journey and to really pick your brain. I'm so, so interested. Um, but first let's ground ourselves into who you are, how you grew up, where you grew up. Tell us about just the early days of your life so we can get a sense of who you are.
SPEAKER_03Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to have this discussion and be able to share some of this journey. I was born and raised in Georgia. Uh it was me and my brother, and just kids getting into a lot of a lot of things, uh, very adventurous, uh exploring in the woods. And uh my mom's probably had a couple phone calls coming to pick coming to pick one of us up from school in moments. Uh but always just been very active and loved playing any sports. I played baseball with my brother because and my cousin, because softball was too slow at the time. I got into softball and basketball and uh always loved the academics growing up, loved math, would have contests to see who could finish tests first and get the highest score and just enjoy enjoy a little bit of competition in all all parts of the world. And then I went to the University of South Alabama. I played basketball there for a four years, and then I went to Indiana University, and then I got my master's in anesthesia there. Uh since I graduated, I've been a practicing CAA in Colorado.
SPEAKER_00Well, uh, we're gonna wind it back up because I have questions already. Um tell me about growing up and realizing that you're interested in a lot of things, it sounds like. Uh were you very encouraged to kind of be that diverse? That sounds, I don't know, some sort of idyllic. Was that part of your upbringing?
SPEAKER_03Yes. Both my my mom and my dad said, anything you want to do or try, we'll try it. And then if you like it, we'll continue to do it. Uh but they were very big on making sure I I gave things an opportunity and figured out what I enjoyed.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. I'm already putting pieces together. Okay, so then why basketball? Why did you pick that one thing to pursue? Was it in high school you kind of narrowed in or just when you went to college?
SPEAKER_03It's a great question. I think my my cousin and I are about a couple months apart, and we would always just play basketball one-on-one. And we there was just always this drive to see who was better and who could be better, and we loved it. It was so competitive. It also brought in like the team dynamic and being able to be around a good community of friends, and there's always some moments to get better and something to work on in the whole process. Uh just loved it. Loved the game, loved watching it.
SPEAKER_00And you looked at many schools before you chose um oh geez, now I've already forgotten which Alabama school did you go to? South Alabama. South Alabama, that's what I would have said. Sorry, South Alabama. No. Um, was there a reason you chose that school? Did you have lots of offers? Was this close to home?
SPEAKER_03I had a I had some offers. I I chose South Alabama because at the time I really wanted to still do something in medicine. I went on my official visit to South Alabama and they had a med school there as well. And so the thought was that uh they would I would be able to go straight from undergrad there to med school there and then continue on. And I thought the path would be perfect. And then a lot of the professors in the in my undergrad degree would have been my professors in the med school process.
SPEAKER_00So it just kind of made sense because you were thinking, oh, I'm gonna become a doctor, but this is gonna kind of drop me off easily into that world. And then at some point you detoured into CAA. So talk to us about how you found out about CAA.
SPEAKER_03Ever since I was a kid, when it came to the medicine side of things, I was just fascinated. I didn't know like what journey that would take me on. And so, as far as I was aware, it's always like becoming a doctor. That was basically the path of it all. And so when I was at South Alabama, they required us to be on campus during the summer and take classes. And one of the electives that they offered was to shadow different specialties in medicine, which allowed me to see numerous options of pathways to take. And when I shadowed one of the anesthesiologists, I was like, Oh, this is this is wonderful. I'm able to still be a part of this this team and this medical staff of taking care of people and making people feel very comfortable in some of their more vulnerable moments of life and make them feel like they're gonna be well taken care of. And I love that, but not having to be in the surgery and doing it all. And so then I looked at different opportunities of how to get there, different pathways. I looked at the anesthesiologist route, I looked at what it would take to become a CRNA,
Finding CAA
SPEAKER_03and then I looked at the CAA path. Uh one of my good family friends is a CAA, and so he allowed me to shadow him, and he talked about the the training that CAAs have and how extensive the training is uh to still be able to provide such quality anesthesia, and then he talked about the autonomy that it provided and then the work style life balance that he's been able to accommodate for himself. And I was like, this is it. This is exactly what I want to do. This is this sounds perfect for me.
SPEAKER_00I love that. I love that that's how the profession is billed. Like, I that's how I feel about it, but like what a cool thing that our profession is like. Here's this amazing secret thing you didn't know about, and it has everything you want and nothing you don't. I just yeah, really proud of how we get to describe what we do. My mind is thinking a little bit to well, a couple, a couple questions here. A little bit of the aspiring CIA listening to you who is maybe juggling um, maybe a full-time job and trying to go to undergrad, or they are any level of college athlete, or you know, maybe they're caring for a parent, like some other huge time commitment outside of only studying. Talk to me about how you balance being pre-med, and then of course, that kind of transitioned into being what people are calling pre-AA now. Talk to us about managing your time in undergrad with all of those commitments.
SPEAKER_03Great question. I think that being a student athlete kind of forces you to figure out time management because you have the 5 a.m. wake-up calls for 6 a.m. workout classes, and then you have practice afterwards, and then you have to study for a test somewhere in between that time period. And so you learn quickly how it is that you learn and what is most effective for you. Then you figure out if I if I know that I need an hour, two hours in these moments, you make that time, whether it's in the morning or evening, and then everything else kind of works around that time period. And so if it means you need to get up earlier and then take care of whatever it is, maybe go to sleep a little bit earlier as well, so that you don't feel exhausted and staying up later at night to try to make that time work. But there are definitely are moments where you have to make sacrifices and maybe you can't go hang out with certain friends in certain moments or take trips because in the short period of time you have to dedicate yourself to certain things because then you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor later on.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. One more question, dive just a little bit deeper. Um when you were playing D1 basketball, yes, um, and let's call it let's call it pre-AA, were there times when you had to choose one or the other? And and how did you make that choice and which one won?
SPEAKER_03That's a good question. That was actually a really big part of why I chose South Alabama too, is they don't always talk about it much, but sometimes when you go on your visits and you're recruiting, there's certain schools or coaches that will not allow you to have certain majors because the classes interfere with practice. Oh wow. My coach made that decision easier for me because he understood the importance of academics and knowing that you need to have everything taken care of and then you can come perform on the court. The athletics were always kind of second, then he made sure that we we knew that there was stuff of life after after master.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I have one more question around this time frame, and then we'll move on um to my thousands of questions about professional refereeing and that journey. But what I was gonna say initially, like a CAA to CAA conversation between you and I, that I have noticed that college athletes seem to do well, especially early on as AA students. They also interview well. And I think you've already spoken to some of that, like why? Like, what is it about that type of person who can play a collegiate sport and who sort of presents themselves really well? But tell us how it felt to be an AA student as a D1 athlete. How what was that transition? Was it easier? Did you see yourself like struggling less maybe than some of your cohort? How was school for you, I guess?
SPEAKER_03It felt like I had a lot of time. In
Time Management as a Student Athlete
SPEAKER_03grad school.
SPEAKER_01Oh, in grad school, interesting.
SPEAKER_03Because it felt like uh okay, I it felt like I was working like this kind of eight to five time period, but I still had earlier times in the morning if I needed it, or later in the evening, where before it's like you wake up at five for the workout, and then afterwards you have a game, so you don't finish until like eight o'clock. And so it felt like I had just more time. I think the harder part was figuring out the subject matter was just different from some of what I had in undergrad. And so it was like, okay, this is new, this is new, and being very honing in on what exactly I'm learning in these moments, whether it was the pharmacology side and how everything worked. Um just newer material.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I felt that too, like sort of undergrad steps you from this to this to this, and just sort of take baby steps, and then A school, which for me was in 2006, just felt like this whole you couldn't even touch it. It was so amorphous, all this information that you didn't until you got into the OR. And then you're like, oh, here it's all clicking.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's a great way to put it. That is exactly how I would say it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. Interesting. Okay, ground us a little bit in what dates, what years did you go to AA school, when did you graduate undergrad, just so people can get a sense of that?
SPEAKER_03So I did undergrad from 2014 to 2018. I got my degree in biomedical sciences, and then 2018-2020. I went to AA school in Indiana, master's in anesthesia, and then went right out to Colorado.
SPEAKER_00And in 2018, how close were you to being the first Indiana AA cohort?
SPEAKER_03I was the second cohort for the Indiana program, which was fun. Learning moments throughout all of it because we could give feedback. Very good feedback of how it was. And we did have um some really good professors, some really good people in charge of the program. And I know it's changed throughout the years. Um, but it was it was fun to learn.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You know what? I was just thinking it would probably be very smart to gather all of the CAAs were in the first class, first or second class of these new programs. And like probably we could innovate on building new schools from that like little test group, like what went well, what didn't go well, especially now that you're a CAA and you can kind of look back. Like that actually, someone needs to someone who's listening needs to get that idea and start absolutely streamline that process of starting it all for sure. What would you say to a CAA who is considering the locum's life, calling Harmony, seeing, you know, like what that life looks like for them?
SPEAKER_02I would just say that they should weigh their options, you know, look at the contract and compare it to other contracts. You know, Harmony is not the only provider out there now that that is hiring CAAs. Look at other contracts to feel like you're, you want to make sure that you're getting the best opportunity. You have the opportunity to check and see for yourself to make sure that you're getting the best, the best pay rate, the best hours, just the best opportunity overall.
SPEAKER_00And do you feel safe with harmony? Like, do you feel like through the due diligence that harmony meets your expectations every time in terms of that negotiation process or feeling like you're well cared for in terms of the hours and the pay rate?
SPEAKER_02Yes, I would say yes. Like the contract that I started with five years ago is not the contract that I have today.
SPEAKER_00Okay, let's get into you played basketball all four years. You graduated, went to AA school. It is now 2020. And when did you graduate within that wonderful year?
SPEAKER_03Uh December of 2020.
SPEAKER_00December. Okay. So you we're not even gonna touch that. I'm sure that was just a whole thing. Um, especially with your rotations. You're trying well, fine, let's touch on it a little bit because you know, if we don't talk about it, it's not gonna go down in the record book. So talk to us about being a second-year student, a second-year AA student during the beginning, middle, and more middle of COVID in 2020.
SPEAKER_03It didn't seem real. There are moments of, hey, this is kind of going around, we're kind of trying to figure it out. We may slow down some cases in the OR, but we're just gonna see kind of see what happens. And then the first years get pulled out of the OR, and we're like, we can only have so many people in the OR in this time period, and then the cases get decreased every every week. It's like your caseloads just drop and drop. And so they're trying to figure out how do we still have people do rotations, and then some of the outside rotations get cut. And so everybody comes back basically to Indianapolis, which does have at the time they had four major hospitals that could take students still. So they we would have sometimes we'd multiple of us into some one or trying to learn again, like back to being in your first year of trying to figure it out and just trying to get your hours and figure out what numbers do you still need to get. And if you needed to get certain things, you may have priority in certain cases that you were going to get get into. It was definitely different.
SPEAKER_00How many other students in your class were there? We did you have a big class?
SPEAKER_03We did not. We started off the first and the second class for Indiana were both 12. Okay. Which made it easier in terms of uh of making sure that everybody could get into the or and still get their hours. That made it a lot. That was I think great. I loved having such a small class.
SPEAKER_00How did you feel when you graduated then in December? Were you like totally ready? I feel great. Or were you like, oh, sure. Okay.
SPEAKER_03I actually felt I felt great. I felt like Indiana did a really good job of preparing us. We saw a lot of diversity.
AA School During COVID
SPEAKER_03In terms of cases, and we we were able to do outside rotations to see how anesthesia can be done in other places or different techniques that people had. And then we did have to kind of come back into Indianapolis and stay in those the four local hospitals, but they still allowed us to see a lot of different things and felt pretty prepared.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, what how great is that that there were four big hospitals that you guys could could spread out into? That was smart planning.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and with such a small class, we were able, a lot of us were over our numbers. So we were able to see and get as much experience as as we kind of needed to find.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I um thank you for letting us talk about that because I was just realizing that if we don't truly, if you and I don't talk about it, if it's not recorded, it goes away and just becomes sort of verbal stories. And that was a very real that changed everything, uh, truly in terms of how people learn. And you know, now in AA school, there's more virtual courses where there were never virtual courses, there's more sim lab. It expanded our our understanding of what's possible. Again, kind of yeah, the whole purpose of this podcast. But so thank you. And let's transition into getting out of AA school, moving to Colorado. And I know from our discovery call there was a little bit of um the why behind that was your love for refing. And so tell us just the beginning of when did you ref your first game? How how normal is that for you know top athletes to become referees? You know, for people who have no idea, like me, what this world is like, just how do you take that first step in?
unknownPretty much.
SPEAKER_03Honestly, it's such a good question. Because nobody's like, I want to be a referee. Well, it's niche, it's pretty niche. Um no, unless they have somebody in their family, most people aren't like, yeah, but let's go get yelled at for the next hour or so. This is gonna be great. This is gonna be great. Um, so I was at South Alabama in my senior year. Uh, there's this these little these twins love to watch us play at South Alabama. And their dad was a referee. He was a Division I referee that would bring his girls around all the entire time while I was there. And every year he was like, We need people to ref. Anybody want to come ref? And we're all like, no, like, why would I want to do that? Referees are terrible. They're they're terrible. And my senior year, I was like, you know what, I'll try it. And so I went out one weekend and I made a couple hundred dollars, and I was like, nice, okay, so I have some money for the weekends.
SPEAKER_01What did you ref? What was your first game?
SPEAKER_03Middle school.
SPEAKER_01A middle school basketball game. Yeah. Women.
SPEAKER_03Both. Okay, but I'll give you like um two or three games in a couple days. It was those parents are probably like the their kids are gonna be the next best athlete in the world, and so you get to hear this all the time. And but that was okay. I was like, yeah, yeah, you can yell at me. That's that's fine. And so because I was still playing, I wasn't able to do much of it. And then when I went to Indiana, I was like, let me see if I can still get into this. I joined my local high school association, and when I wasn't so busy with referee games and would make some money to kind of pay for the expenses while I was in grad school. And the nice part about officiating is that you can make your schedule. So you can go in your calendar, and if you're not available, they can't assign you any games. And so you kind of make your own availability in your schedule, which has made it pretty nice. And then I moved to Colorado and I was like, okay, I kind of want to just actually give this a shot and and see like what I can do or what I can't. What what can I do with this? So I moved to Colorado and they had camps. I found out that you have to go to camps to kind of get seen and be able to move up in the world. And so there was this Juco camp that I went to, and it was great. And I met one of my current mentors who's been phenomenal, and he was like, You've got to go to this one camp. The same year of 2021, and he's he gets me into the camp, and I am just fascinated by this world that I just entered into. You get there, and you have people like myself that are high school referees, you have Division I, Division II, Division III referees, you have NCAA coordinators that are there, you have WNBA referees, NBA referees, and then you have NBA scouts that are there. And it's just like their minds, like there's so many different avenues and pathways, and so much knowledge of basketball and figuring out like how do you look at this play or how do you process this play? And all there's so much more to just oh, that's a foul, I'm gonna blow my whistle and just keep going. There's there's so much more to this world that I had no idea. And I was like, oh, this is this is awesome. This is this is the start of something fun.
SPEAKER_00Yay! I'm so I'm like, I can feel just your passion for it, which makes me lean in so hard. What surprised you the most about working with Harmony for so many years? What did you not expect maybe going in?
SPEAKER_02Uh, I would say that the transparency has been pretty good. I just wanted to make sure that um what they said was what they were gonna do. I definitely hold them accountable
Discovering Officiating And Early Camps
SPEAKER_02and they hold me accountable. It's worked very well for me. Just personally, I can say that, you know, being there five years now, when someone's wife is having surgery, they're like, hey, Keisha, can you do the anesthesia? I'm not even a W-2 employee there. I I'm, you know, I'm a contractor. And they're coming to me asking me, hey, or for example, the anesthesiologist is having his colonoscopy. He's coming to me, hey, Keisha, can you do my anesthesia? And this happens on a regular basis. So I think that once you get there, you prove yourself, you're taking care of patients, you're showing empathy, you're doing all the things that you should be doing as a provider. You become well known and your work speaks for itself. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00That is such good advice from a seasoned CAA. So thank you for that. And I want to know so many things. One of them is what happens at the camp? What do you do at the camp?
SPEAKER_03It depends on which camps you go to. There are teaching camps and there are hiring camps, so they're kind of can change what you're doing there. In general, you're gonna work basketball games and you get evaluated by people that are those MBA, WNBA, Division I, things of that nature. People that have been doing it for a while, FIBA referees, and you get feedback in that regard. They talk about just the fundamentals of basketball, and the basketball officiating system typically works in the three-person. So you have three people all in the court that are working, and you can talk about their positionings on the court, where you need to stand and look to kind of help get the crew in the best position to be ready to officiate certain plays that are coming along and figuring out, okay, well, why did we miss this foul? What what happened in this moment where we weren't able to get this play? And they talk about that you watch plays, you'll break down plays that go on, and you get to learn, learn that side, and then because there are so people in so many different paths, they don't necessarily go over the rules in those moments, but you talk about the rules and making sure that we adjudicated the rules appropriately in certain situations that occurred, depending on the rules for college or the pro side, high school side.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so I don't hopefully you can answer this, but what I'm hearing you say is that the part of learning to be a ref is learning where to stand and look amongst like this tripod of three refs so that you can see all the plays so you don't miss a call. So are you saying that if you make a mistake, meaning you aren't where you need to be, that you then miss a call and now you don't know if there was a foul, should I call a foul? Talk to me about the reality of that part. Um, like if is that like putting the the um breathing tube in the esophagus?
SPEAKER_03That's a good way to put it. Yeah, it's like when you, especially when you first go in and you're going to intuvated patient and you're like, I can't recognize any of these structures. But I also don't want to look like I don't know what I'm doing. So you just put a tube in and then they it's in the esophagus, and you're like, oh crap. And then the same with refereeing, you're like, I think I need to be here or stand here, or and it kind of looks like a foul. I think I'm gonna blow my whistle, and then you go look at it and you're like, yeah, that no, that was not a foul. But these plays happen, there's so many plays in a game that it's it's very important to be uh they always talk about the three-person philosophy and the this system that they have in officiating and how well it's shown us that yes, we do have weak spots where unfortunately we can't have we aren't able to see certain plays. But it's done so well that when we don't follow the mechanic system that we have, we're more likely to to mess something up if unless we uh if we were to have just followed the system in which we have um in place for us. And so same with anesthesia. There's this there is that's why when you get there, they they give you like this drug sheet, and these are the standard drugs. And then if you veer off in certain moments when you want to use something else, when it you didn't need to do certain things, it's like well, we have this system in place, and this is your sequence for after you intubate a patient and you go through this and then you forget it, and these little things they're little, but in certain moments they can make a big difference.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Nothing has been a bigger par parallel. Like being a professional referee and being a CAA are somehow uniquely the same thing. It's crazy. I'm thinking like telling, you know, first year students right now in Missouri are about to become second-year students, and I one of the things I tell them is you just do it the way they want you to do it when you go out to Texas. Because there's gonna be like a Texas way or that unique hospital in terms of um, you know, an extubated patient should look like this. This is how awake their extubated patients should look like at this hospital. And I know that your last rotation, they were okay if they weren't responding, you know, holding their head up for seconds. But here, that's what's expected. And it's it matters because that's what the recovery nurses are used to seeing, and that's the how close the airway rescue is to the PACU is based on how often they have to use it, which is based on how awake their patients are. And like bam, bam, bam, it all matters, and they're all just these really like tiny little things, but somehow they matter. And what you're saying is the exact same thing is true.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. The attention to detail is the most important thing in both professions. And the moments that you you forget those little things, everybody tends to notice it. If not, you at least tend to notice it and you're like, I won't do that again, but it can lead to just bigger things, and it's the tiniest details in both sides that that make a big difference and and how effective you're gonna be and how how well some how how smooth some things can go.
SPEAKER_00Smoothness, yeah. Yeah, like it's you're eventually being a CAA is not just about being able to do the job, but to be smooth when you do it, um, to look relaxed when you do it or what look like you're control.
SPEAKER_03Interesting. Exactly. Yeah, the perception of that, the perception of just everything is under control.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Okay, let's keep going because so um you're in Colorado, you're kind of you're going to these camps, you are progressing through it, sounds like this system of middle school, high school reffing. Then you were in JUCO, which is junior college for people who didn't pick up on that, junior college roughing. And then what what's your next step after that, after a couple of these camps?
SPEAKER_03So that year when I went out to Colorado, I got hired into junior college, and I went back and watched some of my film after the other camp that I went to that in 2021, and I was like, so this is all in 2020. So I graduated in 2020, I moved to Colorado right at the beginning of 2021 and started my practice as a CAA, and then I went to two camps in that same summer, and that's when I was like, wow, this is fascinating. I went back and looked at some of my old high school tapes, and I was like, wow, this does not look good. I was like, oh, I should, this needs to look better. And so I I leaned into that. And so these next few games I said, okay, well, how can I fix this or fix that? And then same with becoming a CAA. It's like new in my practice. It was like, okay, I tried this way, maybe, maybe I shouldn't make my wake-up and emergence process this. Maybe I should tweak it in a certain moment. Maybe that timing didn't work out well. And so it was this all this little tweaking on both sides of the world for me. And then next
Gaining Precision as a Ref
SPEAKER_03year comes around and it's time to go to camps again. And so I decided I was gonna go to division one hiring camp, division two hiring camps, as well as another teaching camp. And I went and I ended up getting hired in division one, division two that year. And so the weirdest, craziest thing was that my my biggest goal was to always become a division one women's basketball referee. I loved the sport, I wanted to give back. I enjoyed being around these young athletes, these young females, and just talking to them and talking to them along their journey. And it was just it was so fun to be able to give back, and that's all I ever wanted. And then there I was, and it was like, okay, now there's but there's still more to do, there's still more to learn and to continue to grow in this process. And so that happens, and then in my third year of Division I, I get hired into the Big Ten and the Big 12, both of which are power conferences. That same year, I then get hired as a G League referee.
SPEAKER_00Okay. We need to stop here and break this down because you've already educated me with this language that I knew nothing about, but yeah, yes.
SPEAKER_03So there's there's this whole thing, there's there's like layers and processes through the all of this. So I will go a little bit more in depth into all of it. So for the the the process to become a professional referee is not one that most people will talk about or know about. It doesn't just like, oh, you're hired one day and that's it. Um, you have NBA scouts that are around that will see you, such as in that first camp or the second camp that I had gone to and introduced myself and uh just was able to like get familiarized with this is an NBA scout. This is what they're this is they go around and they evaluate officials. And then after that, they they'll send you an email inviting you onto the it's called the pipeline, into the pipeline process. And so they have monthly calls, now it's twice a month, and you get on and you talk with certain people from management, they break down plays, they talk about the fundamentals and mechanics of the system. And the fundamentals is is the key to everything that we kind of do. And you have to at least you have to know these, and then you talk about the rules and how the two of them blend together. And so then once they they've invited you to this pipeline process, they then invite a hundred of their top prospects to what's called grassroots. And so they evaluate you there, you do some games, you have uh meetings that first evening when you get in, and then about a week later you'll get uh another email saying, Hey, you've advanced to the mid-level. And so at that point, you take the top 50 prospects for this year, and it's kind of the same thing. More games, more evaluations, meetings in this time period. And then they invite you to what's called a lead, where you referee the top 100 prospects, and you use all professional rules, and in this you have an interview with all of management, and you're referring games, going over rules and more meetings and breaking down plays. And so it's the way for them to kind of get to know you a little bit better, and it's a great avenue where you get taught and some more training. And so from there, then they hire anywhere between five, twelve uh or so into the G League. And then so everybody has to go through the G League to either go to the WMBA or the MBA. So there's this whole process of then getting selected into the G League, and then there's another process that continues on from there into the next few steps. Um and then in college, you you have the JUCO junior college, and then you have D3 or NAIA, depending on kind of the regions that you're in, and Division II, Division I, and then there are what's called mid-major conferences. South Alabama was in the Sunbelt, which is a mid-major conference, and then you have the power conferences, the Big Ten, the Big 12, the ACC, and the SEC.
SPEAKER_00Okay. And do they go uh what in case people aren't watching on YouTube, are they two separate strands or are people are refs from the colleges trying to go into the G League and up into the WMBA MBA route? Like is there a lot of mixing, or you pick one?
SPEAKER_03It's a good question. Um, so you do have college referees that are refereing in the G League, and you do have college referees that are referring in the WMBA. Um, the process, everybody's process is a little different and in the paths they take. Um, not everybody wants to go one direction and not everybody wants to go in the other direction. So you may have some in the G League that don't do any college, and you may have some in college that don't are not in the G League. Yeah. It's very everybody's kind of it kind of depends on each individual and the process that they're going in or have gone along.
SPEAKER_00Gotcha. And the G League is uh equivalent to minor leagues, you know, like in baseball, right? G League is minor league basketball for men and women.
SPEAKER_03They don't have a women's G League, I should say. We'll have a women's G League. I'll have a women's G League, yep. The G League is like the NBA's developmental program. Okay. Yep.
SPEAKER_00And you what year were you refing? What year were you one of I caught
High School Ref To G League
SPEAKER_00that between five and twelve people, meaning Genesis Paramount is one of very few who gets asked to become a ref for the G League. What year was that?
SPEAKER_03That was last year, so 2024. 2024.
SPEAKER_00Well, congratulations. Wow. I feel like you're on the precipice of whatever is next for you. And and who knows? I I don't know that you exactly know that. We're gonna find out, Genesis.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes, I know.
SPEAKER_00So you got an email, like they call you and like this huge congrats, or is it like oh show up on Tuesday?
SPEAKER_03Um, we get a phone call from management, uh and Duke Callahan, wonderful, wonderful guy. Gives a call and is like, you know, Genesis, what are you doing today? And I think I was in the OR. I think it was in the OR when he called, or like in between cases. Yeah. I was like, you know, just in between cases, getting ready for my next one. He was like, okay, well, I'm gonna let you get back to what you're doing because that sounds more important. But I just wanted to congratulate you and let you know that you've you've been hired. And it was it was wonderful. It was a great moment.
SPEAKER_00Um what does it mean? Like what are what does refing in the G League mean? In is there a season? Is there okay, I know I'm gonna ref 30 games in the next six months? Like what what's the commitment there?
SPEAKER_03Let's see. Uh so season in general typically goes from November to the beginning of April for the G League. And so you get your you get X number of games in that time period. Um, and so you don't necessarily know exactly how many games you're gonna have until the schedule kind of comes out. They have an idea, roughly, that they like to give people. It's they do a really good job of making sure that you get reps, and it is a developmental league, so you have opportunities to see plays, get better, and break down film and figure out, okay, this is how I can learn from this situation or this moment, and this is how I should handle this next time. And maybe not in this way, maybe I was that moment I didn't handle appropriately. And so they they they want you to work and get those opportunities in that time period. But you know, from November to April, beginning of April, you're probably gonna be busy with some some basketball games.
SPEAKER_00And what did that mean for for working as a CAA when you got that call?
SPEAKER_03For me, everything from all the conferences that I then picked up in terms of the college side and then getting hired into the G League meant for me that I no longer could guarantee 40 hours in in a work week. And so I had to transition to PRN and the USAP group in Colorado has been great. I worked with some really good uh anesthesiologists and anesthesists that have helped even before I made that transition, helped to accommodate my schedule, switching shifts and making sure that, hey, I'll pick up here if you can help me out here so I can get certain games. And they were they were they've done a really good job of kind of helping me. And so then when I had to make the switch, kind of understood that it was coming along. Um and they're like, it's okay, we'll figure it out, we'll work with you. We we enjoy like having you as part of the precare team that we have, and we wanna we wanna see you here still. And so they've been very good and flexible. And so when it's basketball season, I I try to work and pick up when I don't have games, but when it's not basketball season, it's back to the 40, sometimes 50 hour work weeks because I when I miss it. I miss being in the OR and I miss the community of people around and being able to take care of patients. It's it's there's nothing like it. It's completely its own world, and I love it. So try and spend as much time in the hospital as I can and just being grateful for allowing me the flexibility when I am in season to to kind of travel for basketball.
SPEAKER_00Wow. Yeah, that's kind of a dream scenario that I think is becoming not quite so rare, like going PRN. Previously, I mean it's certainly when I first started was no one. I mean, just that that opportunity did not exist. And USAP, for people who are listening, is a large national anesthesia group. Um, Genesis, correct me if I'm wrong, but you worked for USAP, they owned the anesthesia or they provided the anesthesia at one institution, and when you went PRN, you moved, right? Didn't you go to a different place?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I moved from Colorado Springs to Denver. So still in the like the Colorado region for USAP, but they do have two specific regions, one in Colorado Springs and then one in Denver. I am now a part of the Denver USAP group.
SPEAKER_00Got it, got it. Okay, personal question. Hopefully it's okay if I asked. Is the G-League refing paid? Is this a paid position?
SPEAKER_03It is. You get paid per game. You get paid your daily predim when you're there and traveling. They'll pay for your flights. And if you have certain expenses like Uber rides to and from the hotel, that they will they will cover those things.
SPEAKER_00Very good. Okay. I just wasn't sure exactly like how much of this is doing because you're passionate about it or you're like trying to get to the next level, but that makes me feel good. Perfect. Also, I would love to hear, and I didn't tell you I wanted to hear this, but I just can't not know. Like, talk to me about a game day for you as a ref. Let's say the game is, I don't know, what's a normal game? Like 2 p.m. What's a normal start time for you? So 7 p.m.
SPEAKER_03So yesterday, yesterday I had a 6 p.m. tip, um, which is the time the game starts. The crew and I got in the night before, and we met with the first crew that was on the game the night before the the that day. So say the game was on Thursday, and my game's on Friday. We met with them, the Thursday night crew, we had dinner with them, asked how the game went because we would have the same team matchup, and I kind of figure out the landscape of the game, how was it, what did what do they recognize, any patterns. And so then the next day we'll get up, we have a day game meeting, which is typically depends on the day or that crew, 11 a.m. And we break down some clips and some plays, and we talk about certain matchups, certain style of play that teams may have, and figuring out, okay, how do we how do we have this approach? We we have a preparation of this is what we're this is this is our game plan going forward. And so then the game is at the game was at six, so we need to be at the arena. We typically get there about an hour and a half before. So we left the hotel at 4 p.m. We go to our games in uh business schedule where so get your suit on, you pack your bag, make sure you're ready. We get to the arena, and we're met by the uh G-League Security, who then takes us in, and we then will kind of go back over a couple of different things that we need to talk about, whether it's certain plays that we saw, certain rules questions that we need to talk about, and figuring out any any new information that we may want to talk about or things that we didn't cover yet that we wanted to go back in in depth
Balancing PRN Work
SPEAKER_03about. And then we have a security briefing um at the 60-minute mark before all those games. We go out um about 15 minutes before the tip-off, and then it's game time.
SPEAKER_00I just my head is swimming because I'm so fascinated. I'm trying me to narrow down, like in our limited time, what I need to know. But I need to know what is the goal? Like I'm hearing so much about a prepping for a patient for surgery, like so many parallels, and I know the goal of an anesthesia, like an anesthetic for a patient in surgery. What's the goal for a raft in the G League or any raft?
SPEAKER_03For for one game specifically?
SPEAKER_00Uh just tell me both. Now, well, if there's more than one, now I gotta know more than one.
SPEAKER_03So I guess in general, I think I think one of the best ways to kind of say it is that like in both fields, like excellence goes unnoticed. Like when you do a perfect job, nobody notices in either profession. But the moment a mistake is made, it's immediately visible. And it shows the importance of professionalism, the importance of being precise in what you do, and making sure that those little things are taken care of. And so everybody wants to be able to say, in a basketball game, like we still we stayed out of the way. They just played, they just played basketball, football, and hoop, and we got obvious fouls. That's like a great game. Think about the anesthetic world, it's like it was great, no issues, like all the blocks were great, all like and the surgeons didn't say anything, they were very efficient, and patients woke up, it was very smooth when they woke up, and there everybody was happy. But the moment that we start making mistakes, everybody notices those little moments. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I wonder if there is if this is true across other refs. Like, do you see a lot of refs who would make good CAAs? Yes. Yes. They don't have the stomachs for it, but they would if they saw a tour ACL or like someone break their arm on the court, they probably are fine.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. There are definitely some that would be very good. There's a um there's such a connection between like being able to have a conversation with people and being able to identify, okay, you're frustrated. Well, why are you frustrated? Is it something that's going wrong with your surgery? Like is some something that some instrument isn't working for you? And so you're just frustrated. And unfortunately, I'm the one that's just hearing it and listening to it in this moment. Or on the court, okay, you're frustrated. Was it a bad call? Or are your guys, are you just on a five-game losing streak and you're just frustrated? And how do I talk to you? How do I disarm you and come back to? I hear you, I understand. We can't talk like this. We we can talk in a better way, but this is how we should go about it moving forward. But I do understand, and I hear what you're saying in this moment, and being able to get people back into okay, let's do this, let's take care of this business in this moment.
SPEAKER_00Girl, I have to talk to you about emotional intelligence because I have finally named uh exactly what you're talking about. Well, I didn't name emotional intelligence, but I've put those two things together. What you're describing is the emotional intelligence of being a CAA, and it is a very similar skill set to what it takes to be a ref. Do you think you've learned more emotional intelligence from being a CAA that you've brought into refing, or refing has taught you more and that you've backfilled into being a CAA?
SPEAKER_03I think that refereeing has impacted me more as a CAA in terms of the communication aspect of it and the emotional intelligence of it all. So, like in in officiating, there are we have these camps that we've been discussing about, and they have they have certain classes that they will teach us about personality assessments. They talk about like the disc assessment and being able to identify what certain people are and what approaches tend to work when you you talk to them and the way you talk to them. And then this past summer, um the GLAG referees, we all did the Hogan assessment. And so that helped teach us about kind of ourselves and how we handle feedback and conflict and how we make certain decisions. And it's more just informative to say, okay, if I'm able to recognize my emotions and understand where I'm coming from in these situations, and then if I can recognize the emotions in which somebody else has, it's like, okay, this is how we should probably conduct this conversation to help us be able to problem solve and alleviate the stress and come to a mutual understanding. We may not agree, and that is okay, but we can at least have a conversation, come to some understanding. And I do think that in medicine we need better training on this because at the end of the day, we all have the same common goal. We're all advocating for our patients. And we often find these challenges when we like can't communicate effectively with other healthcare providers. And so being a referee has helped me come back and say, okay, this style of communication here, and this is like in this periop moment with the periop team, figuring out moments to communicate with them and say, Hey, can you help me out with XYZ or we need to do this, or can I help prioritize certain moments? Because, you know, the first case of the day, even it's it can be so hectic in the pre-op room. And you're like, okay, what can I do to help you? Do you need help with the IV? Do you need help getting labs? What in this moment can help us become more efficient? Because sometimes people are frustrated and something happened with this other patient that I have no idea. But trying to figure out, okay, what can I do here and how can I communicate in this moment? Because me getting frustrated isn't gonna help and it's not
BTS Game Day
SPEAKER_03gonna speed anything up. And unfortunately, we don't have that. We don't have that for whatever reason. I think we need it. I think we do.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I think we need it too, Genesis. I'm just gonna put out there on the pod that I have manifested for you being on stage at the Quad A, teaching us through the um metaphor of repping and the emotional intelligence of repping, reffing, you're gonna pull us in with your amazing story and relay it to anesthesia and exactly what you just said, like being in pre-op and having to get that first patient of the day to the room on time so that bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, people aren't upset. And how those two things are the exact same thing and the same skill. And you just said, like, we need people to teach us. And what I have found to be true as a CAA is that as soon as you identify, we need somebody to be doing this, you like look over to your left and your right, and you're like, oh, it's me. Oh, I'm and like there is so much opportunity to learn and grow. But some of these basics that can really set us apart. Like, what if every CAA had amazing emotional intelligence? Like, what would that do to our profession and also to become the leaders of that? Like, that's exciting to me.
SPEAKER_03That's great. No, thank you. That is uh that was wonderful. That that would be great. That would be a lot of fun. Some moments of they merge so well, they do. It's it's it's fascinating because we don't there's so much more to j than just oh, I'm gonna put you to sleep, I'm gonna wake you up, and that's it.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yep. All right, well, we'll just I'll I'll see you at the quad day 2027 or who knows.
SPEAKER_03I hope to be there this Denver quad. I've been planning on it. Oh I'm planning on it. I'm gonna, as long as when I get my schedule, it'll be a couple more months until I get it, uh, at least come to a couple of them. Okay, great. I'm very big on our profession and making sure that it continues to grow because it is uh it is such a hidden gem.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm so excited to meet you in person. Um yeah, uh talk to me about sort of the ethos of this podcast and what I get so fired up about is about the CAA profession really being a very unique hidden gem, like a leverage point to live a life by design, to like live all aspects of you out loud. And I feel like you're such an example of that. And I just I wonder, well, first, do you agree with that? And also, did you know that's what you were getting into when you became a CAA? Like, did you have thoughts of maybe I want to do refing and maybe I want those other parts of me? Was that part of the decision?
SPEAKER_03I don't know what I thought I was going to do with this reffing career as a CAA. I knew when I moved to Colorado, I was like, I just want to try it. I just want to to give this an opportunity. And if I tried and I failed, then at least I tried, and I can live with that. I tried it, and it's brought me great success in this moment. And so at the time, I did not know to what extent we could be providers in the CAA world. You talked about um how limited those PRN positions were, and I think I do have to give COVID like COVID really introduced the locums, the PRN, and and I think there was a realization of like there there is so much more, like we have a life ourselves, and we need to enjoy this life, and we need to still like very grateful and passionate and giving back about our job that we do. But whether it's family, kids, whatever it is, we still have to have our own life in that and take the time for those things that are important to us. And so I think as as it continued to progress and these opportunities of welcome, PRN became more readily available, I was like, okay, well, what does that look like? And I was able to ask some that were uh PRNs that I was working with and how that's been for them. And they're like, honestly, you can always go back full time. And when you realize that, that moment that you're like, I can always just go work. And it it gave me a little bit of a sense of relief of like, you know what, let me, let me, let's try this. Like, let's give this a shot and see what happens. And then from that year when I transitioned from full time to PRN, I knew that the the opportunities to become a professional referee are few and far between. And so to be able to have this opportunity, I'm gonna try and take it. Um take what take it, see the best that I can do, and let the pieces fall within me.
SPEAKER_00I have a thousand more questions, but we're over an hour, and I just want to be respectful of your time. So I wanna leave us off with something that maybe super exciting for this very niche audience who is probably jumping up in their seat like I am to hear you speak. But um, what what's like the biggest wow moment or nervous moment or stress moment of being a ref? And what story comes
Emotional Intelligence in both careers
SPEAKER_00to mind when you when I ask you that?
SPEAKER_03One of the most intense moments were like both worlds collided. Uh, it was my first year as a G League referee. I was in McAllen, Texas. And we just went to a timeout, and in the G League, we stand uh near the free throw line extended. And I'm walking towards my position and I just hear this loud thud. And so the arena went dark for whatever they were gonna put on the jumbotron, and you just hear this big boom. And I thought, oh gosh, there's gotta be a fan running around this court just like doing something crazy. And I look around, there's no fan, and then there's a security guy, he's on the ground, and I'm looking over and like nobody's coming over to him. And you're like, Is everything like okay? And then you realize he's having a seizure. Oh nobody's doing anything, like nobody's moving, nobody's like, everybody's just kind of like, like, what's going on? Um, so run over to him and he's purple. I'm on the other side of the court, and he's on the other free throw line, and he's just he's still seizing and he's purple. And at this point, the lights all come back on, and everybody's just staring and looking. Again, nobody's come over in this time, period. And so you stabilize him, uh kind of open his airway and make sure that he's breathing and then wait, wait it out until the seizure stops. At this time, one athletic trainer had come on the ground on the to the court, and he's kind of coming to again and like doing better. And then it's like a 30 seconds later, they have the EMTs coming on, just walking, walking with Gren. You're like, so so this is good. This is good. Yeah, I was like, so it was it was a moment where it was like it was nice to be able to be there because if something were to have happened, like you had hands like I was able to do that, but it's something that Never you don't really think about of like, I need to use some of my skills and training in in a basketball game, in a in the game to officiate. And it kind of brought up the awareness of like this, the training that we've been provided uh is phenomenal and being able to take it anywhere and everywhere.
SPEAKER_00And what an asset you are too, like in that world that you are ACLS trained, and you know, God, that's just such a give and take every or give give and receive a lot on both ends. Yeah. Wow. Both of them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It's been wonderful. The the PALS training, the BLS, ACLS, keep those up ever and one because we have to, and those it's really good to have, honestly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And interesting too that that whole like when something's going wrong, you know, I forget what that's called, when bystander effect, when everyone thinks someone else is going to do something. Yes. And then no one does anything, or no one calls in the car on fire around the highway because they thought, oh, someone else certainly had interesting human psychology. Um, which a lot of refing and a lot of being a CAA, a lot of working in medicine is a lot of like, oh, that's human behavior at its finest. Um I am going to transition into the rapid fire. But again, I just want to say thank you so much for saying yes to this. You were actually recommended to me by um one of my previous process guests. I always ask them, like, is there anyone else you think I should talk to? And your name came up. And I'm just so glad that our paths cross. And I'm excited to see you at the quad A now and meet you hopefully in person. But thank you very, very much. And if you're watching this on YouTube, you're about to see Genesis do uh one minute of rapid fire.
SPEAKER_03Thank you for having me. I've this has been wonderful.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening to Awakened Anesthetist. If this episode resonated with you, share it with a CAA friend, an AA student in your life, or a perspective and let them know why you loved it. It's the most important thing you can do to support this podcast and its mission. You can always find more ways to connect with me and this CAA community at awakenedanesthetist.com, including an invitation to join season five Mindful Connections. These are free virtual gatherings open to anyone in our Awakened Anesthetist community. And while you're scrolling the website, check out my trusted CAA partners who make this podcast possible with a special thank you to my season five sponsor, Harmony Anesthesia Staffing. Talk soon.
