Your Dreams Are Closer Than You Think | Season 5 Finale LIVE @ AAAA 2026 ft. AAAA President Emily Mycyk

The 2026 AAAA* President had a marketing undergrad degree, years in hospitality as a bartender, one EMT night class, and a long stretch of prerequisites. This might not sound like the “perfect” route into the CAA profession, but it can be the exact training ground to build a great CAA and an even better leader. We recorded this LIVE Season 5 Finale on April 10th, 2026 from the AAAA National Conference main stage (my podcasting dream come true). It also ended up being one of my favorite conversations, not only because Emily openly discusses her imposter syndrome and test anxiety, but because it will make your big dreams feel possible again.

*American Academy of Anesthesiologist Assistants

Connect with Emily Mycyk, 2026 AAAA President

A HUGE Thank You to my Season 5 PROCESS sponsor, Harmony Anesthesia Staffing.

Harmony is CAA-owned, clinician-forward, and leading the way in the CAA locums market. Schedule your free 15-min consult and see how locums can work for you. Say 'hi' to Rad and Sasi for me when you do!

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Transcript

Live Finale And Big Dream Realized

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, Awakened Anesthetists. What you're about to hear is the live season five finale. It was an interview on stage at the 2026 American Academy of Anesthesiologist Assistants, also known as the Quad A National Conference. This conversation was truly, absolutely a dream come true. I share a little bit more about my journey to the Quad A main stage and interviewing our current Quad A president in the episode. And I just want to express my sincere gratitude to Emily Meisick, who you're about to meet. She is an incredible CAA. She's an incredible human being. And this episode was everything I absolutely hoped it would be. The feeling in the room was just so supportive and connected. Emily just really shined on stage. Her story is so unique and so poignant and really delivers on this promise of your dreams are closer than you think. Not to say that dreams don't take a lot of work and effort, but I know in the growing pre-AA community, this CAA profession dream can feel so far away. And Emily's non-traditional story really highlights how when you keep going, keep pursuing your dreams, your goals, and little by little you do get closer to achieving them. And six years into that dream, you might also find yourself the Quad A president. So I hope this final conversation is as expansive to you as it was to me talking to Emily, as I heard from so many people who are in the audience listening, so inspired by Emily's story. Please share this episode if it touches you or if there's someone in your community who's maybe considering becoming a CAA but has a more non-traditional path. Truly lets you really feel that anything's possible. All right, on to the episode. 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 Anesthetist Podcast. Welcome in. Hi everyone, welcome. I will eventually set, but I'm a stand and walker, so I'm gonna stand just for whoa. Hi. Welcome everyone. I'm just gonna stand for a little while while I just introduce you to Awaken Anestis Podcast Live Recording. You may not know that there's a podcast specifically about the CAA, SAA, pre-AA experience, but there is. I've been recording episodes since 2021. It started as uh to fill a need to hear the stories that I needed to hear to go to my next level. I work in Kansas City, Missouri, and we tend to only know the story of the five or ten people we work with. And so it can be a little isolating when you want to do something like work part-time or work in a different environment and you have no one to look to. So the mission, the ethos of the podcast has always been to share CAA stories as expanders to expand what's possible inside this profession. So, what you're about to hear is the season finale, the fifth process episode of season five. And I just wanted to give you a little bit of backstory about how I got here. So, you are standing right now inside my biggest dream. In 2021, when I was starting the podcast, I actually had started one in 2020 with my husband called Growth Minded Marriage. Loved podcasting. I am an amateur storyteller, I love to hear people's stories. I'm a curious question asker. And when that first podcast kind of came to its end, I thought, I want to do this for my profession. And in 2021, I was doing my New Year's Eve like journal sesh. And I said, one day, maybe in the next 10 years, I want to be live on the Quad A main stage, interviewing our current Quad A president and showing the human behind the presidency. Because even for me in 2021, I had been a CAA for like 13 years at that point. The Quad A president was like lofty, pie in the sky, not the human being that you're about to meet. And I wanted something different. So I had been podcasting for four seasons, and we were coming up to the fifth season, and I just wasn't sure I could do it anymore. I had some big dreams of my own. I wanted to work part part-time. Currently, I'm working PRN one day a week to make space for some teaching that I had a real passion for. And I lost my health insurance when I went PRN. So I'm not sure exactly if you all know how much health insurance is. Currently, I'm paying $2,200 a month for my family's health insurance as a sole provider. My husband's also self-employed. And I had the good fortune of being a plus one to the Harmony Anesthesia Staffings party last quad day, 2025. And I developed a relationship with these two gentlemen you're about to meet. And we were initially thinking a sponsorship that they would allow me to continue podcasting for this fifth season, telling our stories. And what happened was it turned into a partnership, really. We have a lot of mutual interest, and I am really grateful for what they have allowed our community to grow into. I've been featuring Harmony Anesthesia Staffing, which is the largest CIA staffing company, um, unrecorded, but anecdotally.

Harmony x Awakened Anesthetist Partnership

SPEAKER_01 6:40

And um, I've been telling you their story. You've met Rad, the founder, in one of our process series episodes, and you've heard how he came from, again, a little dream seed into what Harmony is today. And so I wanted to uh invite them both on stage, Rad and Sessie, to give you just a little bit more in this very intimate CAA way, sort of a deeper look at what it means to run a CAA company and maybe why Harmony is doing some important work that we need to hold up a little higher. So I would love to welcome Rad and Sessie on stage, gentlemen. And now I will sit. So I wanted to, I've been getting to know these gentlemen. I didn't know Rad and really didn't know Sessie until a year ago, until we started um talking about what a partnership on Awaken Anestis could look like. And so I've learned a lot about how to run or how you guys are running this innovative, CIA-focused staffing company. And so if you've been listening to the podcast, you've kind of heard that journey. But I want to take just a moment here to really highlight um some nitty-gritty pieces of how they're running their company. So I want to ask Rad first a question. And you have really instilled in me how harmony is clinician focused. And that sets you apart as a staffing agency. And you are so passionate about propelling the CAA profession, about supporting the CAA profession, truly. You helped me pay my health insurance. And I just I know you have this big mission of having clinical stability for CAAs in your placements. And I would just love if you could tell this audience who gets it what that means, like on a logistical level, and on a business level almost, so we can see some behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_03 8:38

Sure. Um, first of all, thank you for organizing this. I'm gonna understand concurrent local toxicity, local toxicity sets from going on. So thank you for coming to this. Uh, I do appreciate it. Um so to answer your questions directly, you know, we were using global groups as a pathway to expand our scope of practice to CAAs. Groups that would previously not be welcoming to CAAs over to the concept of having a CA local that opens the door for us to enter practice groups that wouldn't previously be open to having CAs. Now to answer your question about the stability, we have these direct relationships with groups, and the way that we differentiate ourselves is by putting providers, and when we say internally and internal policy, it is always providers of a province. What does that mean? I'll give you specific examples. Last week, we had a provider who was flying to do a one-week assignment. She does it one week a month, and the group gave us more than a 30-day notice, and her assignment was canceled because there was some changes and some staffing changes that occurred. But the provider, our team member, had already revolved the Airbnb and paid for it. And you know, some time it's not the deadline again. Right? So reached so she reached out to us and said, hey guys, if I canceled on the cable to get it canceled, but I got this Airbnb bill, what am I gonna give? I said, Don't worry about it. We're just gonna get this one chain and just pay for it. And that's just one small example of how we don't put profits over the wire, right? And then secondly, on the client side, the facility side, when we're working with hospitals, it's about hyper accessibility. When a client calls me, I don't care if I'm in the Eiffel Tower or on a steal with, I can't screen after all. And so we're hyper hyper accessible. So when there's an issue, we can adjust it very quickly. Let me give you one more small example. It's eight o'clock at night on a Thursday. I get a text message. Hey Ral, we're super short staff. We had one of our W2s out of the reachment last minute. We really need someone for two bar. It's eight o'clock at night. Oh my god. Okay. And what do we do? If I can't find somebody, I've personally gone in for our clients that's why I have privileges, and I'll just step in and take care of that client. Sessi has done the same. So that's how we can maintain really good relationships with our clients, which translates into long-term assignments for all of them. So instead of having a three-month assignment where you're gonna have to give back, you know, view credentials and other facility, we have these good relationships that allow us people locals to be on the same assignment for like three plus years. Which sounds crazy, but it doesn't. So that's a long way to answer, but we can't.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

I love it, Red. Tell me more. Um Sassy, let's like cut to the chase here. Um, because there's other locums agencies out there that staff CAAs. So I would just love to just blunt tell us why a CAA should choose to work with Harmony.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

Sure. Thank you. Thanks again for having us. I'll be back there. Um keep in mind that Rad and I are both CAAs. Okay, we both trained at Emery, go Emery. Um and we've been practicing for 10 plus years, 15 plus years. Um being clinician-owned, I think, give provides us an advantage, especially when we're talking to our clients. Um they know that the CAA community is a very small community, and we definitely uh market the fact that we uh do have the most CAAs uh that work for harmony in the uh in the country for any agency, I should say.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Non-anecdotally. I keep saying it.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

So um I think they understand that when we present a provider to them as a candidate for Logan's assignment, that we've gone a little bit above and beyond what your standard typical agency will do when they're presenting a candidate to uh uh a site. Uh that's number one. Uh number two, I think the biggest thing, and I think the thing that probably will have more of an effect on y'all is the fact that we're not just doing this as a business. Uh it might have started that way. This was supposed to be a small side business for us, but it obviously morphed it to what it is now. Uh, but our our vision and our mission statements kind of changed. And it's not about us anymore and our families, uh, it's more about our CA community. And it has now become a driving mission for us to ensure that wherever we're licensed so far, that we should have locum opportunities for CAAs. And so we're halfway there in the current state of affairs. We got a long way to go. Um, and that also manifests itself in in how we can also give back to our community, right? Obviously, we're a sponsor of the conference. Um, Rad is uh sustaining member of Quad A. He's on the legislative committee. I have multiple roles. Uh I'm a board member of Quad A. I'm the current Tennessee AAA president because that's my home state. I'm a GAA board member. Um I started as a student, the clinical coordinator at Emory, morphed into a chief, and then now I'm doing this. So and we're we're still active clinically as well. You know, we we like to stay relevant in the space. I don't want to lose my skills, all that money I paid Emory to become what I am. Uh Brad does cardiac on Mondays and works at you know another institution on Wednesdays, and I work four days a month. So honestly.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Yeah, they don't. They they do answer emails

Meet AAAA President Emily Mycyk

SPEAKER_01 14:33

so readily.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

You know, I think and we both of us we love having conversations with people that are even just considering this. Um I think uh the opportunity is great in the current state of affairs, but at the at the end of the day, it's about well, what we can do for our community. And um that's about it.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Thank you guys. I uh um have on screen the QR code to book a 15-minute call that's totally free. It's an informational session with Red or Sessie directly to them if you're interested in working locums. And I'm just eternally grateful that I said yes and you said yes, and I really have appreciated what you brought into my life. So thank you very much. And this is not the last you'll hear from Red and Sessie, but they're gonna go take your seats. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

All right.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

So we asked Emily to come up. Emily, do you want to come on stage and start your podcast as our quad 2026 president, Miss Emily Meisick, takes the stage. Give her around applause. Thank you, maybe. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Well, wow, thanks, guys. What a dream.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Amazing. This is incredible.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Yeah. So um, how are you? Phenomenal. This weekend is incredible. Yeah. I can't stop saying that word, apparently. It's my favorite word. Uh no, I'm great. You know, taking in everything I can, trying to meet as many of you guys as I can, and just thankful for everything we were able to do this weekend. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Let's um let's meet you. I like to do a rapid fire. I like to like ask the awkward sort of personal questions to start things off. It's sometimes to break the ice. Perfect. Let's do it. Um, so actually, I'm gonna have Rad and Sessie ask your first rapid fire, and then I'll probably ask one or two more. So whoever wants to go first, maybe stand up just so they can see you, Rad.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Press the snooze alarm. Yep, not ashamed. I'm a I'm a snoozer. I've been told I should break that habit. I'm I'm really working on it, you guys.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

When we candidates when we wonder as the first question, it's I'm always serious.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Ooh, great question. I am from Illinois, for those of you who don't know that, and I didn't know what CAAs were. And we're gonna kind of get into my non-traditional path to becoming a CAA. But long story short, I Googled PAs and Anesthesia one day. And I think we were gonna share more and some some following questions. But I I had the hopes and dreams of becoming a PA at one point, but was very interested in anesthesia, and thought, you know, I don't I don't really want to go the nursing route. Is there something else I can do? And so a short Google search and uh some friends in lacrosse, a couple physical therapists who hooked me up with a shadowing opportunity uh because they had a patient who was a CA. And that is my roundabout very brief explanation of how I found out about the profession.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Hmm. Good questions. Very good questions. Good job. Okay, I have a couple. Um, how many hours do you work on clinic clinically? And then how many hours do you work quad a present stuff?

SPEAKER_00 18:07

A week depends on a week. Yes. Uh I'm I am full-time at UW, so I do do 40 hours a week. Okay. And um for quad A, I would say I do anywhere from 20 to 40. So almost a part to full-time job on the side. Um, you know, post this is a really busy time for us, right? It's legislative session, we have our conference, a lot of really great big events are happening. So it's it's a busier time on the quad A front in the summertime, you know, perhaps a little bit less, but it is a labor of love, and I couldn't be more proud to do it.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

I was gonna ask you how many hours of sleep you get, but I we can calculate that.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Um I've been making it a priority, really trying. Good. You know, I get at least the six, but I'm going for seven. I'm gonna add like a 60%, you guys, for my monthly average. Awesome. It's better than failing.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Yeah, yes, it is. Um, okay, last question. What's something that never gets old?

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Never gets old. Meeting a patient. Every day I get to see a fresh new face. I get to have those five to ten minutes with them before we go back to the OR to build that rapport, build that trust. And then I get to be the last person that they see before they go to sleep and the first person that they see when they wake up. And it still is, it still is astounding every time I'm in the OR that I get to do this job, that we get to do this job. It's the best mix of art, science, and medicine. I heard that once and I stole it.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

I was told it's 50% art and 50% science, was what the case Cleveland, I don't know if we have any case Clevelanders in here.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

You probably have heard that before. Does anyone know Jeff Smith? He's the one who told me that. Like it, like it.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Okay. Now that I feel we all feel a little bit closer to you, let's keep

Finding The CAA Path

SPEAKER_01 19:56

going. Um, of course, you are not always the quad-e presidents. And you sort of mentioned this non-trad path. And and let's just say non-trad is what? Someone who what even is a non-trad coming out of AA school or coming into AA school, maybe we're talking not immediately after undergrad. So walk us through kind of, we know how you found out about it, but take us back into that path, what you were doing before you even applied to AA school. Go back as far as you want.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Oh, okay. Well, let's start with my undergrad. So I have an undergraduate in marketing and advertising from the C of Illinois. Very difficult. Um and I worked in sales for a short time, sold copiers for about six months. You can tell how much I enjoyed that job. And I ended up in hospitality management for a while. I was managing a bar, restaurant, and concert venue. Um, and I did that for quite some time. And it was, you know, it was great. You you get to meet a ton of people, learn to diffuse a ton of situations, you know, you build a lot of skills that are actually applicable in different ways to anesthesia. Um, but I just wasn't fulfilled with my career choice. You know, was it even a career in my eyes? And it is. I've I've nothing against anyone who goes in hospitality management. If kudos to them because it can be a lot. But I wanted to do something that challenged me in different ways. And so on a whim, because of one of my staff members who is studying to become a firefighter, actually, I was flipping through her EMT book because they have to be EMTBs. And I signed up for a night class at my community college for an EMTB course. And I've got to be a little bit more. How old were you? I was 23, 24. Okay. So a few years out of undergrad. And I never ever ever thought I wanted to do anything in medicine. And I ended up just being completely enamored with anatomy and physiology and just the medical process. And so I thought, okay. Okay, do I want to continue this work or continue this path? And and what do I want to do? Do I want to be in the field? Do I want to be in a clinic? Do I want to be in a hospital room? Um so I did some research and I decided PA. I want to be a PA. And that's what I knew in Illinois. And so I signed up for a post-bachelorate pre-health program at Loyola University. Um, all it required was a master's, and I was able to start taking all of my prerequisite courses there. And I was simultaneously working for my dad as a dental assistant just to get some. I didn't know that. Yeah. Surprised. Some some medical experience, um, as well as working at the bar. And I went through those classes and I started thinking, well, gosh, there are so many different kinds of PAs. What kind of PA do I want to be? I have no idea. But when I was younger, I had two shoulder surgeries when I was 16. I was a competitive swimmer for a long time. And she was a D1 swimmer.

unknown 23:06

Go on.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

That's if I feel like a long time.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Um big gorgeous.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

And um I thought, you know, anesthesia is really interesting. I don't really understand it. Are PAs even allowed to do anesthesia? And roundabout, that's how I Googled one day PAs and anesthesia, and the CA career came up. And so then I did some research thinking, is this really real? Do people get to do this? I don't understand. Too good to be true. Yeah, exactly. And um, so with that research and then with some connections, I was able to sort of find this path, or this path really found me, right? And then I um finished, so I ended up having to take a few more prerequisite courses, as those graduates know. And then I ended up taking the MCAT. At the time I went to school, that was still a requirement. And then I got into Case Western in Cleveland. Where are there any Case Western people here? All right. Look for you guys at trivia. And uh and it's been the best decision I've ever made.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

I have so many questions. I want to just highlight the non-trad timeline because I do think we um as humans can see sort of the pinnacle and be like, oh, it was just this to that. Walk us through how many years was it from the time you took that EMT course to acceptance into Case Western, Cleveland?

SPEAKER_00 24:39

So I took my EMT course when I I think it was 23, and I did not get accepted into school until I was 29.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

So we're talking of prerequisites and full-time work.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yes. So post the EMT class, it took me, you know, uh a little less than a year to kind of figure out maybe what I wanted to do next. And then I took all of my prerequisite courses over the course of about four years. And then, you know, I know we're gonna talk a little bit about test anxiety, but it took a lot for me to work up to taking the MCAT. As those who have know, um, I was in the first first cohort of the new eight-hour MCAT, and that was so great. Sounds great. I was the easy cohort.

Nontraditional Timeline And Paying As You Go

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Yeah, I don't know about easy, but not eight of us. But um, yes, so it just took me a little bit to get through everything, both mentally, and then I also I wanted to pay for everything out of pocket. So I spread out my courses a little bit more just in order to be able to do so and go to school without debt, because as you guys know, school is not cheap. So it took a little bit longer, but that's okay. I'm resilient, as we heard in our lecture this morning, building resilience.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Yes. How many years? So uh Case Cleveland's a 24-month program, then you've been working for six years? How many years? Six and a half. Six and a half years. Yeah, it's just not that long. It's interesting that the time it took you to get into AA school was also the time it took you to become the quad A president. And that's like really just an interesting challenge, maybe to all of us. That gosh, if we want something big, and we're gonna talk about whether you even saw this for yourself, but it's just an interesting idea that chasing a dream feels so slow in the middle. Oh, for sure. And then you told yourself, what, 12 years ago now I'm gonna be the quality president on stage. It's just never. Never did I ever. I just love these types of I love to hear your story. Okay, let's see. What do we want to talk about? I think I want to hear, um, because I do a lot of teaching around emotional intelligence, around the art of anesthesia, and you have like two things that my brain has pinged. One is that um I know you were a bartender, correct? I sure was. For years and years, and then moved on.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

And sling them with the best of them, you guys. I love that. Now I just do it in a different way, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Yeah. Um, so let's first start with the transferable skills that you had from being a bartender, let's talk interpersonal communication, reading the room in anesthesia. Like, can you pinpoint I pulled this skill and moved it into the operating room? I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

For sure. I think um, well, multitasking, first and foremost, right? When you're for deep at a bar and you're trying to get to everybody and trying to do a million different things, and then you're managing and you're managing staff. So a lot of those things, but really building rapport with people quickly, learning to read, you know, the personalities and what this person might need in this situation, I got from working in a bar. You know, you you meet such a wide variety of people that I can now go into any pre-operative room and say, okay, I I'm I'm reading this a certain way. This is what this patient needs to feel comfortable going into the operating room, and I can deliver that for them.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Um, how do I say this tactfully? Um it's an interesting um concept that something that isn't formally taught. I would like to change that. Formally taught in anesthesia school, that reading the room skill only came because you were a non-traditional student. And our opposition often says there's only one way into this pasty of anesthesia, and you have this very specific skill set that is incredibly useful and sets you apart in the OR from something that wasn't nursing and something that wasn't being pre-med, you know?

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Oh, for sure. I'll say that was actually the biggest topic of conversation when I was interviewing for anesthesia school. Everybody wanted to know. Yes. Everybody wanted to know about my work outside of it, which was it it just sets you apart in a little bit of a different way, like you said.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Were you prepared for that for your interview? Did you think they were gonna I did not.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

I thought, oh my gosh, they're gonna ask me so many science questions. I, you know, I did all of the prep work. I I had that six-hour case western day interview. Definitely thought I blew it. Luckily I didn't. Um and then it completely went a different way. But luckily I was able, you know, to pivot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Okay, I would love to hear. Um, well, let me ask you all, since we're in like a tight group right now, how many people have some level of test anxiety? Like, maybe just raise your hand. Okay, like let's look around. Okay, so this is something that I have heard a lot in my work with the pre-AA community, the AA student community, and I would love for our Quad A president to sit on stage and tell us about her test anxiety, maybe take us from when it first really impacted you. I don't know if that was the MCAT or before, and then on through AA school.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

I always had some version of test anxiety, and I still do actually. I think Nicole can attest to that last year during our ASA strap planning conference when I was studying for my research. I was just a bag of nerves. And that's I think you guys just have to embrace it. But it really started, you know, to come to fruition around the MCAT time. I think because I really it really mattered to me. I was so driven and so focused. And I wanted to do well because I this was the career that I I wanted to be in. And um, so you know, heart racing, feeling like I'm nauseous, um, thinking that I failed. And I'm sure a lot of you guys share that feeling after you take a test, you think, oh my gosh, I bombed it, and then you end up doing okay. And so getting over the mental hoops of that is it takes a toll on your body, takes a toll on your mind. And so finding, you know, coping mechanisms is super helpful. When I got into Case Western at least through the anesthesia program, I developed a really great core group of friends. And I will say, all of you who are students, you have people who are going through the same thing that you are, right? And so bonding with them and and doing study group sessions and quizzing each other and you know, reminiscing about whatever you whatever you need to talk about was incredibly helpful for me. On top of the physical things, like trying to get sleep even though your brain won't stop. Um, and then you know, deep breathing works for me sometimes too when the heart's racing. You'll see me do that tomorrow before my speech. Yeah. And so just just kind of employing all of those really helped me to move forward. And then realizing, you know, think about the things you know, not the things you don't know. So I'm thinking, oh, I failed, I failed, I did terrible, I did terrible. I don't know that yet, you know. Let's wait until the score comes out. And that I ended up doing well on on most things that I was worried about. But I think part of it was because it mattered so much to me. Yeah. That you develop this narrative in your mind, right? And it's it's often a negative one. So really trying to break yourself of that is important. And it's hard to do. I'm still learning.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Um Shenandoah, the keynote speaker, just talked about how belonging is the key to resilience. And I'm wondering if six and a half years ago your cohort talked about text anxiety. Like the people you were studying with, was that a conversation you had? Were you each helping each other find like coping mechanisms? Was this internal?

SPEAKER_00 32:31

It was both.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Um, so a lot of it was internal for a while, and then I felt comfortable enough to share,

Bartending Skills That Translate To Anesthesia

SPEAKER_00 32:40

and then I realized that other people are going through the exact same thing that I am. And so, like Shenandoah said, talking about your feelings can really break those barriers. And that was what was incredibly helpful for me. And it was it it ended up getting easier as time went on. Yeah. Now that I take tests less frequently, the anxiety comes back a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Um, I stood in line to speak with Shenandoah during her book signing, and I was kind of, of course, trying to find an easy answer to a hard problem of like how do we implement this into AA school. Um, and what she said really resonate is it's slow and steady work, and you the change starts with you. Yes. Um, and so if your cohort's not talking about it, you talk about it. You're the one to bring it up. I've probably most people in here are students. So also for CAAs, practicing. Um, we're talking about second victim effect on the professional wellness committee here soon in the fall in a webinar, and that only gets better when we start sharing. So thank you. Thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Thank you. Thanks for asking. That's the first step, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:45

Yes, absolutely. Okay, I would love to transition gently into um, of course, I don't I'm very interested in the human behind the presidency, but I'm also interested in how someone like me, someone like you, functions as the Quad A president and just um meets daily, sort of that bureaucratic, uh-oh, I'm probably about done. Okay. The bureaucratic slowness, I would say, of like change inside medicine, change inside the CA community. And I'm just curious, maybe if you have any like, oh man, my my non-trad path to AA school sort of set me up for this, or how you deal with that slow change on a bureaucratic level.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Oh, yeah. And it is slow, you guys. It is. But you know what? I think if if it's something you really believe in to your core, you take it day by day and you don't stop the fight, right? You know, a lot of a lot of times, you know, Thomas Edison failed 99 times to make a light bulb. All you need is one success. Yeah. It takes time, and if you stick it through, then it's going to be worth it. You know, there was one point in the meat of the the pre-AA track where I thought, I how am I ever gonna get there? Yeah. You know, you look at all of these things down the road that you have to overcome in order to get where you want to go. And for me, what's helpful is taking it a day at a time. And small wins are still wins, right? It may not be where you want to get to, but you have to take steps to get there. It's usually not the most linear line, and there are things that are going to be thrown at you that you don't expect. But building that resilience and sticking with the things that you believe in will get you there eventually. And there are still things as president that I would like to see happen that I know are not gonna happen in my presidency track. But at least we can set the stage and and make the appropriate steps towards that change.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

I just want to hold up the fact that you said um it's uncomfortable with the speed of change being so slow. Like nobody likes that. Not even the quad president is like, man, can we just kind of um and also if you're a non-trad pre-AA or you're a CAA trying to make change inside your department and it's just like, my goodness, this is this number. It's it is um what's the what's the challenge there to just focus on the wins? Like do the work it takes to find the positive, because our brain wants to find the negative, you know. Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

And building a great support group.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

I I will say one at UW, and I've got a few UW people with me here. They're incredible. They have supported me every step of the way, and even in in my daily job, they're they're phenomenal. And just, you know, creating this like beautiful uh mentality of wellness. And also from the quad A side, I have this phenomenal group that is just so passionate and so dedicated in volunteering their time. Yeah, and they're some of

Test Anxiety And Coping Tools

SPEAKER_00 36:47

my best friends. They become some of my best friends, and I just appreciate everybody who has been with me every step of the way.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

I didn't say this. Let me say this on your behalf. Every person, Emily included at the quad A, who is a CAA, is a volunteer. And the CAA president is a three-year role. Correct. Give me the names in incoming. So it's president-elect, president-elect, president, uh-huh, and then immediate past presence. Yes. So it's a three-year free position to the success and the protection, really. It's both forward pushing and protecting what we have. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Yep, because you really, I mean, and it's I think the way that we do it is great because you need that president-elect year to come in and really, really learn things and and make those connections and set yourself up for your presidency year. And it really, honestly, it takes three of us to do this job. Yeah. I am not a singular president. I have two phenomenal people to my right over here, Jordan Eagner and Nicole Moore, who do incredible. Can we just like clap for them? Do incredible work as well. So, you know, I I'm just I'm lucky and thankful, but I you have to appreciate that it is a three-year time commitment, but it's necessary for the roles. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:07

Okay, last question I'm debating. I um, okay, I'm gonna give up my last question for um something that I think would probably benefit everyone more. Um, is talk to me about when it became possible for you to be the quad A president, like in your own mind. Maybe the first volunteer thing you did for the Quad A, and then you were like, I'm the person who's gonna be the Quad. Like, walk me through that.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Oh, sure. So I'm still floored that I'm Quad A president. You guys hasn't set in yet. Um, you know, and I I did kind of battle a really heavy imposter syndrome for a long time. Um, but when I was a student, I volunteered my time as the sort of the quad um liaison to my class. And I started there, so I got a little bit of experience with the behind very preliminary behind-the-scenes quad a things going on. And then a first year, well, I was the second year, one of my mentees nominated me for the treasurer position in 2020. The treasure of Quad A. The treasure of position as a first-year clinician. Yep. Yes. And tracking. Yes. And uh I thought, oh my gosh, am I even qualified? Can I do this? I don't, should I even say yes to this nomination? And so that's you know, just a little bit of a side note. When you have these opportunities that you think you're unqualified or uncomfortable with, you they might turn out to be the best decisions you've ever made to go for it. So I urge you guys to even though you're feeling uncomfortable, maybe take that on because you might end up loving, loving the things you're doing, and so many more opportunities come along with it. But you know, I thought I had managed a business, I can do the treasurer role, right? Finances, numbers don't lie, I can do that. And um, so I started as treasurer and I did two years, and I loved being the treasurer, and I was hugely supported by all of the people at Quade and the staff. And so I ran for re-election by choice, and um, so I served another two-year term. And it wasn't until the last year I was treasurer that I finally started to think, okay, I I think I can do this. And it was actually at the urging of one of our past presidents, Danny Masaras, who said, You can't, you can do this. Yeah, this is possible. You know, put the no out of your mind and just think about it, right? And so I thought about it and I thought, you know what, what the hell, right? I can do this. And so I just want to humanize it a little bit because it seems really intimidating, but once you're in the thick of it, it's it's possible for anybody to do.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

Yeah. I love that. And I love to end on that because that is the mission that I'm so passionate about in all things for CAAs that there are many worlds we're not in yet that we can be in. Um, and so maybe just take a moment to consider what maybe is in your future, what passion lies in you, what skills you have from bartending that are transferable. Um, yeah, and I just I really am grateful that I you allowed me to have my own dream come true on this stage. And thank you guys so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you, Emily. Thank you, thank you. Thank you guys very much. Cool thank you for one of the balls. Thanks 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.

Leading Through Slow Change And Support Systems

SPEAKER_01 42:08

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