Awakened Anesthetist

Enhance CAA Advocacy Efforts with V.O.I.C.E ft. Adrienne Evans

• Mary Jeanne, Certified Anesthesiologist Assistant • Season 5 • Episode 94

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Curious what it actually takes to change hearts and minds when advocating for the CAA profession? Turns out, advocacy is a skill like anything else in this field, and it starts with the right mental model. Whether you're a practicing CAA facing pushback in the OR, an AA student finding your voice online, or a pre-AA just starting to understand our profession's fight for recognition, this episode gives you a framework you can actually use.

In this episode I sit down with Adrienne Evans, SLP-turned-Pre-AA and co-host of the Pre-AA Pathways Podcast, to break down her original V.O.I.C.E. Framework for advocacy.

In this episode we discuss:

  • The V.O.I.C.E. Framework: Validate, Own, Identify, Cite, End with inclusion
  • How to respond to misinformation and disinformation about the CAA profession without escalating
  • Why validation is a form of psychological grounding that lowers defensiveness in hard conversations
  • How to identify the root cause of a misconception before you try to correct it
  • Applying the framework in both online comment sections and in-person conversations
  • Why most advocacy conversations won't change a mind on the spot — and how repetition and small efforts build relationships and long-term change

Resources Mentioned:

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SPEAKER_02

Welcome 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 Anesthetist Podcast. Welcome in. Welcome everyone to the Awakened Anesthetis Podcast. I'm really excited to come out of my hiatus. I had just announced probably two months ago that I was going to be taking a break from podcasting as I pursue my two-year doctorate of healthcare education, but I knew that there were gonna be conversations that were going to tempt me to come out of hiatus, and this is one of them. Today I'm talking with Adrian Evans. Adrian and I actually connected first through my efforts to build a new wellness curriculum around the art of anesthesia for the CAA community. And then we've been working together closely on the Quad A's new professional wellness committee, which Adrian serves as an affiliate pre-AA member. Adrian is a non-traditional pre-AA. She is a longtime speech language pathologist, but she has this specialty in something called cognitive communication. That is really where she shines in her expertise. And I got really excited when I saw Adrien post on her website and then on social media where you can find her at SLP2CAA across all social platforms about an advocacy framework that she created for those human-to-human conversations that often people in this CAA community find ourselves in, whether it's a CAA to a colleague CRNA, or a CAA to an anesthesiologist, or student to student, or preAA to CRNA, all of these one-on-one advocacy communication efforts that really could use a framework so that we get it right more often than we get it wrong. And that's exactly what Adrienne has used her expertise to build. It's called the voice framework. We're gonna tell you all about it in this episode. And as soon as I saw her talk about this and post about it on her advocacy page, I knew that this was something that was going to revolutionize the grassroots advocacy within the CIA profession. So I'm just so proud and excited to share this conversation with Adrian and myself. You can find all the information, of course, in the show notes, but let's dive into the episode. You have a pretty interesting background for someone who is coming into this profession. You are the definition of non-traditional. And if you could could just give us a little background on who you are and where you are in your application process into AA school.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, most definitely. Um, first off, before I even go into that, I just wanted to thank you for having me on your podcast, for coming out of hiatus, for like having this conversation. I know we know each other and we work together on, you know, wellness committee things and such, but like it's kind of a big deal. So it is a big deal. Taking your time. Um, but hello, awakened anesthetist community. My name is Adrian. I am a cognitive communication specialist primarily, though I do have a background in speech language pathology. I currently live in Boise, Idaho, but I'm from Southern California. So both non-CAA states. I've bopped around to many West Coast states like Washington and Utah and Nevada. And so I'm kind of all over that side of the country. I've worked clinically for over a decade, 11 years in healthcare and two years in schools, so 13 years total. And primarily what I've done when looking back at my current clinical career, it's primarily teaching others how to advocate for their needs, no matter their injury, no matter their disease, no matter their disorder, wherever they're coming from, whether it's like a dysphagia and swallowing or neurogenic stuttering or cognitive communication. And I'm just naturally, you know this, Mary Jean, I'm naturally a very curious person. And so over the years, I just got pulled deeper and deeper and deeper into medicine. And finally in 2024, almost exactly two years ago to today, I discovered the anesthesiologist assistant profession. So that's me in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_02

There is so much to you, Adri. Like, I was like, oh, you didn't say this and you didn't say this. But I just, I want to say that overarching your interest in the CAA profession and my interest in teaching have overlapped. And where I need help, you are so skilled in. I was so drawn to that cognitive behavioral science, that therapeutic lens that you see behavior change and how to learn something new. And this advocacy that is really what I want to talk to you about is such a particular niche to you and your expertise where you're taking everything that you did before you knew about AAs, and then like, oh, I see this huge gap in the way AAs have been trained to advocate for a profession. And like, gee, I have this huge skill that I could just like plop on over to the CAA profession. I think I want to hear maybe was there any advocacy that you found yourself doing when no one knew what an AA was?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so first off, as a speech language pathologist in the rehabilitation department, you are the specialty that no one knows about. And even though there are over a hundred thousand of us, and the majority of us work in schools, right? Maybe private practice, but you don't typically think of a medically based speech language pathologist. You don't think of cognitive communication, you don't think of advocacy. And so you are constantly teaching others what you do, why you do, and how you do it. And so it's something that you just do naturally, I think, in general, as a speech language pathologist. And so as I transitioned into the CAA sort of world, I started seeing that number one, there's this rampant misinformation problem. Because even as a pre-anesthesiologist assistant, I would show up and say, Have you heard about the anesthesiologist assistant profession? Because that's what I'm looking to be. And no one knows. And so every single time I introduce it, it is like I am their one contact into that world of anesthesia. Um, primarily I've shadowed an anesthesiologist, and everyone in that anesthesia department knew of anesthesiologist assistants, but they didn't, none of them had ever worked with any CAAs. They kind of had this second-hand view of the profession. And even I was having a discussion with one of the CRNAs there, and they asked me, why not CRNA? You know, why CAA? Because CRNAs, like they're great, you know, you get your nursing degree and you have all this support. And there was this tension in the question, and I could feel it. And so instead of immediately jumping in and saying, Oh, because X, Y, and Z, I paused and said, tell me why you think CRNA is an amazing path, because I'm sure it is. Like I validated what he was saying because that's his perspective, or that was their perspective. And so um, then out of that question came this amazing story of how they had tried to get CRNAs in a local hospital system where only residents and physician anesthesiologists were. And it took them seven years to get CRNAs into that hospital system. And that was with the nursing board and lobbying and all of the finances and all of the legislative support that they have. And they at the end were saying, you know, I just can't imagine how difficult it is for the anesthesiologist assistant profession. And I was like, Yeah, you're right. You know, a negative side for a CRNA makes total sense. And for them, yeah, of course they wouldn't be a CAA based with that perspective. But and that's okay to have that perspective. And that's exactly what this framework is doing is saying, how can I connect with this person, confirm their emotional and life experiences and still agree to disagree, essentially. But if I'm having to do that as a pre-anesthesiologist assistant student, of course others are having to do this as well.

SPEAKER_02

So that was a really great experience. And you're 100% correct on advocacy. I didn't receive any education. I know that it is shifting in AA school now. Um, but there's nothing unified. And so let's jump into the framework because we keep mentioning it. Let's jump into it so that everyone listening has the framework. And then I would love to give some examples, some real life what do I say when? Um, because it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, let's dive into the framework. What exactly is it? It is a conceptual framework that will help you change your perspective to better respond to the misinformation about the anesthesiologist assistant profession. It's called the voice framework. Voice stands for validate, own the misconception, identify the root, cite the evidence, and end with inclusion. Now, these steps are essentially stages because it is a conceptual framework. So to better respond to that misinformation about the CAA profession, to improve your overall quality of the conversations that you have about the profession. Now, what we're talking about today specifically is misinformation. And this is different from disinformation. It's different from something called malinformation. So starting with the easiest level, misinformation.

SPEAKER_02

Can you tell us what that is? Because I've used misinformation and disinformation. I feel like there's an intent question there, but tell me how you see it different.

SPEAKER_00

You're right. So misinformation is, you know, something that is not true, but it is shared generally without negative intent, without harm beneath it. Right. So someone is saying, oh, so one of the examples on my website where you can find this is the profession is dying out. The profession's being phased out. And this actually happened to me in a SLP career transition group when a fellow career transitioning speech language pathologist, after I brought up, of course, the anesthesiologist assistant profession, is what I was doing. They said, Oh, my RT friend said, you know, it's so hard to get into programs and it's a dying profession. No one can do it. It's too small. It's it's just dying out, it's not gonna happen. Just just you've been forewarned. They did say not to be rude, but yes, then finished their their comment. And I was like, wow, if that has come all the way around to me in the digital sphere, like how far did that travel?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, and of course, quite far.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, quite far. This person very obviously was trying to be helpful. And so immediately, like, of course, naturally, we would want to say, well, it's obviously not dying out because we've had how many states open up over the last three years? Okay, it's five states over the last three years, right? But I cannot jump in with that information right away. So, with the voice framework, when you validate, you want to think, how can I acknowledge their experience without sounding defensive, without jumping to raise the alarm? How do I lower that? Um it's essentially I need to connect with them to create a psychological safety. Validation is a form of grounding. So as far as an example goes, that can be thank you for bringing that up. It can be something so simple. Yes. It can be something like, thanks for sharing that with me. Or that concern makes sense. Right. And so validation, it could be something really, really quick, but it's identifying the experience and respecting their lived experience because they would not be bringing it up unless they actually experienced that misinformation. And how many of us accidentally have shared misinformation before? Like exactly. We are human, pretty much all of us have. We're like, oh, you know, we accidentally, okay, we we take this back. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02

Mm-hmm. I think it's interesting to think about where I've misstepped with this personally, because when someone starts a conversation with you and lobs this bit of misinformation about this profession that you love so much, it feels emotional. It feels like an attack. And your first response is to tell them that they were wrong and why. Because it feels so important. And this first step V, I think is such a switch that every CAA needs to identify in every conversation we have. And you said it when someone says something wildly misinformed or inappropriate, we're going to pause and know that we don't have to fix it in our next five words.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And that is very difficult to do because cognitively we have a very sensitive error detecting system in our brains. Like our subconscious brain detects errors within a millisecond before our conscious brain can actually process it. And so if we make it a habit to say, oh, I have this emotional reaction, I can't believe they drag my name through the mud, like, you know, you are very visible on social media media, Mary Jean, as an anesthesiologist assistant. And maybe you have been attacked in some way, shape, or form. I'm sure that's very common the more visible you are. And it hurts, I'm sure. Right. And know that, you know, once again, we're all human and we're all on this earth and we're all trying to survive together, right?

SPEAKER_02

And that the best thing to do to continue the conversation, to keep the lines of communication open, to have any chance of this other person hearing us or even maybe changing their opinion is to validate them.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02

And yeah, and I just love that it can be so simple as thanks for sharing that. It doesn't have to be any, you don't have to even respond to any specifics.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. So the profession's dying out, validate, that's that's really common. Thanks for sharing with that with me. The owning the misconception is also another form of validation. So if someone said like that RT friend told them, Oh, the profession's dying out, and I would say, thanks for sharing that for me. You really care. Owning the misconception is saying, yes, that exists. That makes sense from that perspective. The I being identify the root cause, that's when you can get into it's largely because the profession is so small. And many of the misconceptions that are perpetuated are simply because the profession has a small amount of providers. It's very well established, over 50 years now, right? So oh and I identifying the route can also be a little bit more psychological. You may oh like state this overtly, like, yeah, it's because there's a small amount of providers, or it's because it's extremely competitive to get into graduate level programs, but it can be identifying that maybe I'm not ready to do the next step, which is C, cite the evidence, because they are not yet ready to receive it. So it's like you know, the glacier metaphor at the tip of the iceberg, if you see someone who's being combative or dismissive or argumentative, there is so much going on underneath, right? Yes. So just like um that other example with the CRNA who I had that discussion with, there was tension in the way they delivered that question. And luckily, I'm a you know experienced clinical provider and I could infuse the situation. But if they're still not ready and opening up, pause. Skip straight to the E end with inclusion so you can plant a seed to grow the profession later. You don't have to change their mind during the conversation. And in fact, nine times out of ten, that will not happen. Like, how many times did that happen for you when someone's like, Oh, I'm gonna change your mind during this one conversation? It doesn't happen. It does not happen. No, it doesn't happen by creating a collaborative relationship with someone who has maybe a black and white perspective from you. And over time, your continued little exposure changes their mind.

SPEAKER_02

Gosh, that is so. I just want everyone to hear that again and again that nine out of 10 times, assume you are not going to change the person's mind. But what your goal is is to build a relationship where they can come at you with their next question and give you another opportunity to validate, help them own the misconception together with you, identify the root cause of the misconception. Maybe then you can throw, you know, some sort of uh evidential proof at them, which Adrian, you have listed beautifully all on your website. We're not gonna necessarily go through them right now, but even for me, this was new information. Like, oh, I need to have, yeah, I need to have this. Absolutely, absolutely, Adri. I don't think you can appreciate how revolutionary this is gonna be for our profession, just to have all together a list of the evidential proof of our safety, our efficacy, our historical value. Yeah, that's just never been done before. So that's why I was like, we need to have this conversation. But yes, absolutely. And I I wanna kind of circle back to a couple things, but if we skip over C, because it's on the website, go to the show notes, you'll find it.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I'll also say as far as Cite the Evidence goes, new research will be coming out. The bigger the profession grows, the more that will also grow. And so this is not an all-inclusive list, but if you as a CAA or as a SAA or as a pre-AA don't know that Smith et al. did this study, or that Sun E and team did this study under the anesthesia care team model, C RNAs versus CAAs, and was there a difference in length of stay and cost of care and mortality rates? And no, there wasn't. And also knowing that the AAA has a different perspective than the ASA does, and how they show them. So it's you know, I didn't sit down and try and memorize it all. No, I just found it interesting. And, you know, when you have to say these things and you're not in person, you're not gonna throw a journal article in somebody's face. But online, digitally, it's so much, it's so easy to just link a here's a link if you are interested. X, Y, and Z. And it's uh, you know, empirical research done in an anesthesia journal, you know, very reputable.

SPEAKER_02

So well, and I just also think it's important to note that a CAA, I personally, speaking from experience, can feel very caught off guard. Like, I don't have all the information to say why I'm valuable, like, because we've not been taught it. And in a way that CRNAs historically have just put more emphasis on advocacy, of course, than all of their numbers. It's just more likely that you're gonna talk to a CRNA that can spit some some evidence at you, and the CAA won't be able to speak at that same level, which is a disservice for us, which again goes back to everything about a CAA that is beautiful and also hard. That the profession is so small, we need absolutely every single person to be going above and beyond, to be an advocate, to be taking time out of their day, to self-educate, to read these articles. And that sucks. And also, what a powerful impact that you, the individual, have for this growing profession. Like it's a both and um, but okay, so let's go to, I could keep talking about that, but let's go to end with inclusion because this is such a beautiful piece. I feel like the V validate and the E end with inclusion. If we just kind of learn that, yes, hugely forward. So talk to us about that.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, if you hear everything on this podcast and you're like, I can't like I don't have time to memorize all those five stages, whatever. Okay, V and E, they're bookends, they go together. And so validating a person that's validating them as a human, but ending with inclusion, once again, it's planting that seed, it's helping meet someone where they're at. It's It's being able to open that door and to keep it open, even if it's just like an inch, right? Um, whether it's like, hey, I enjoyed talking with you, like we agree to disagree, and yet like I really enjoyed our conversation, or I appreciate your perspective, or thanks for being open, or just thank you, even. But it's a genuine, sincere thing. You have to have this perspective of I can learn from every single person I interact with. Personally, for me, that's like one of my core tenets of being, no matter who it is. And maybe I learn that I don't really like that person, but you're still learning, you know. Sure. Yeah. Um, and or, you know, maybe I don't see how I can see eye to eye with this other person. But as a cognitive behavioral therapist, as far as changing long-term behavioral change in humans, the best way to do it, number one, is by changing our environment. And if we can't change our environment, because we can't control social environments and interactions to a T like we would maybe like to, like we do in the operating room, right? Or like you do in the operating room. I'm not there yet. Um, but we can change our habits and our choices and how we show up. So if we show up with, I'm gonna validate this person no matter what, they may be yelling in my face. I'm still validating them. They may know that those research articles are out there, but if someone has such a staunch like position against and they're then they're not ready to receive it, the work then is how can I meet them where they're at? And for us, you know, in the world of anesthesiologist assistance, and and when you're trying to create that changed perception, it really does take one person, one conversation, one interaction at a time. And if you can have that, okay, V E validate end with inclusion, just bookends, put them together, you're going to start see that change. It's not going to happen in a day. It's not going to happen in a week, in a month, in a year. But if every single provider did a little bit, what do you think that could do? Right. Yes.

SPEAKER_02

This is the biggest life lesson that being a first-year AA student educator has taught me. Because similar to being so pro-CAA, I also want our students, especially when I was a new educator, when I had just graduated myself, I was so controlling over the outcome. I wanted every AA student to be an all-star. And so my thought was I'm going to dump everything I have in my brain right now, all on top of you in your first week of school. And then you're going to be perfect and you're going to know everything because I told you everything. And what I've learned, thankfully, over years, is that it is very small sound bites on top of each other from multitude of different practitioners that have the end result of extremely skillful, you know, graduating CAA. And it's the same thing here. We're not going to turn the tides on all of the misinformation, but one conversation by one person, um, which is why this framework is so valuable. Because, first of all, genius voice framework. Like I that was one of the things that I'm so excited. I mean, girl. Um, but I do this is a perfect transition. I'm gonna stop talking because I want to hear your thoughts. Because so much misinformation and and then let's just say the disinformation and the malinformation, which you mentioned earlier, these online. And there are a lot of conversations happening online that people would not have to your face. And so, can we apply the voice framework in those more tense, more negative online interactions? And if so, what should we expect?

SPEAKER_00

Most definitely you can. Obviously, it is a little bit different. Like I mentioned earlier, as far as cite the evidence, if you're able to get that far, you can send the link. However, when you already have someone who is so combative and they're, you know, a keyboard warrior, know that spreading a little bit of kindness can go a long way. I can't say exactly what that will do for that person or that patient or that provider, but if we bring it back to the baseline of what are we all doing? We're helping our patients, we're reducing, you know, mortality, we're reducing negative impacts of surgical interventions that are mandatory and necessary for our aging population, particularly in the United States. Right. And as far as on my website, I have examples of digital versions and in-person versions. And they are similar, so you can use either or depending on the situation. But for example, someone maybe posts a clip and they're like, anesthesiologist assistants are horrible. And it's too incite, obviously. It's social media, it's supposed to be irritating and angering and make a lot of people comment and whatnot. Before you jump in and be your own keyboard warrior yourself, it's the same thing of how do I ground myself? And this goes along with a lot of what, which is why we work so well together. Yes. A lot of what awakening is is mindfulness and grounding and this intentionality with interaction, like they may be cussing you out on the internet. You can still respect them as a human being.

SPEAKER_02

Some of the examples that you give are that CAAs have less clinical competency than CRNAs, CAAs have less rigorous training, CAAs are inferior because they can't practice independently. And uh, you know, the gold standard, I've never heard of an anesthesiologist's assistant. So if you're listening and and what you're interested at all, you're practicing CAA and SAA or pre-AA and you want to be an advocate for our profession, you can find so many resources on your website. And and I know today we're just focusing kind of on this one, you know, CAAs are dying out, but this is applicable to many, many conversations. But let's go back to CAAs are allowed to have boundaries. We do not need to engage in every inflammatory conversation. And really the conversations that are most apt for applying the voice framework are ones that are not negative, you know, they don't have a lot of heat under them, or that the person that you're having the conversation with can also stay grounded and emotionally attuned and is genuinely asking or like genuinely unaware. But I do think that those conversations don't get as much flash. And so I just think the CAAs who are out there trying to advocate for our profession, it will serve us well to feel more substantiated in that, to have a framework to lean back on. Like we for a long time didn't do any of this advocacy because we're like, well, we're great. Have you met us? Like, we're amazing, we're really competent and we're really nice. And we just kind of let that lead. And now it's like we have to take another step. Like that can be true. And also, you probably are gonna have to do some work that might be uncomfortable to be in conversation with people who are misinformed. And it can't just be like, well, once you meet me, you'll like me. There's another layer that our profession needs to take, and it is that this advocacy piece, which is why this framework is so, so critical.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you. It's it's a layer of intentionality. Now, I will say, having observed you, having outside of the OR, having observed CAAs in the OR just a little bit, as well as other anesthesia teams, I will say the foundation, you guys have the excellent communication. You guys know what, you know, closed loop communication is and how to how to communicate in a very, very high stress, high stakes emergency. And that is extremely vital. But being able to generalize a trained skill to an untrained context is not easy. It is literally what I do as a speech therapist. Like you have to put in the intention to practice this. And even if the practice is that small effort of how can I validate this commenter today?

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Period. That's all you're working on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Like keep it, keep it super small and it will grow from there. But it's really all about applying that mindfulness to communication. And that's what starts building your own self-awareness of where you're good at this and where you maybe need to improve. Absolutely. Okay, let's go over the framework one more time. So V is validate. O is own the misconception. So accept it. It's like radical acceptance. V O I is um identify the root or identify the root cause of the misconception. C is cite the evidence because when you have strong, efficient, good evidence, it is much more supportive. And E is end with inclusion. So end with connection. One thing I will say too, if you are wondering, like, I don't know how to like check if I'm good at this or not. Um, how many of your conversations related to advocacy or about the anesthesiologist assistant profession, how many of them end on a neutral or positive note? And how many of them end on a negative note? And if they end more on a negative note, then you know you are backtracking in the way of the progression. Like you need to make some changes. But if even if you are encountering someone who's very combative, very defensive, very argumentative, you can still end a conversation trending towards that neutral line. And if you do, that is a huge win.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, I have one more question. Of course. Because I hear the audience thinking, are there some people that just like, this is not going to work? I can see this already from a mile away and we just set a boundary and walk away. Like, what's going on there?

SPEAKER_00

So psychologically, when defensiveness is brought up, what's happening is something called belief perseverance bias. And that's when a belief persists even after someone hears evidence correcting it. So, for example, if someone's been through a whole bunch of training and day in, day out, they heard AA's are bad, A's are bad A's are bad A's are bad. They walk away from that and that's like an echo in their mind. Yes. And so they are wearing the, you know, filtered sunglasses of AAs are bad, and that's how they view the world. You're fighting the psychology, and you cannot fight the psychology of that conversational partner. And yes, they are called conversational partners, not conversational enemies in communication science. That is what it is. You are still learning how to collaborate. And so that person, they come to you, they're so defensive, they're so angry, they are not ready. Validate and move on. Yeah. I validate your existence. You don't have to, validation is not agreeing at all. I'm not saying, you know, be run over or be a doormatically, yeah. No, totally. But you know, validate their experience as human and move forward. Know that they need that psychological safety first and foremost more than anyone. And it doesn't mean you don't have to interact with individuals, because you will, you will interact with individuals who are argumentative, combatitive, and hate the anesthesiologist assistant profession. But knowing how to ground yourself psychologically, create safety in yourself, hopefully, you know, pass a little bit of safety to them and connection, and then move forward, knowing that repetition, repetition, repetition, the change is first, first and foremost with you.

SPEAKER_02

It's just really exciting for me personally, as a longtime CAA who's really seen the arc of our profession grow, with my dad being such an early CAA. It's just exciting to be at this inflection point with you. And yeah, I just I want everyone to be able to get a hold of you. So if you are, you know, looking to self-educate on this voice framework, where can we find that? And then also I predict that schools are going to be reaching out for you to teach this voice framework because it is so absolutely critical for our students to be a strong voice for the profession as they are very quickly outpacing us in numbers, us meaning like old-timey CAAs. Um, and that's what gets me so excited about your pre-AA cohort and the students right now. Like they're they're just so alive. So, how to get a hold of you in all the ways.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, I'm on Instagram at SLP2ca. Um, T O, it's not the number. And it's the same on TikTok, though I haven't really started there yet. I'll hopefully talk about this more there. Um, on my website, it's exactly the same, SLP2ca.com. This particular framework is under the advocacy. You can do slp to ca.com backslash advocacy. Um, you can link my email in the show notes. You can send me an email. You can send me a message through my website as well if it also my emails that too.

SPEAKER_02

I want to have on record where you are in your pre-AA journey and where you're, you know, interested in applying to and kind of fill us in as of what is it? Uh first day of August 2026.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my goodness, I can't believe it's already August 1st. So I am planning on applying this season, but I'm finishing up my prerequisites. I'm just barely finishing physics one. I have one more physics two class, and I want to take like a medical physiology class to be able to apply to Emery to maximize my application. There are some schools I can't apply to because speech pathology prereqs don't exactly map, even though we do know a lot about the upper airway, you know, dysphagia, voice disorders, all graduate level, but it just doesn't count. And that's that's okay. Uh-huh. As far as other like next steps and where I'm going, I hope to submit applications this month. Fingers crossed, I just gotta finish a standardized testing and then just finish up some, you know, a couple things on my application and then send it off. But it's almost ready to go. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02

I'm just so excited for you.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, thanks. And as far as other schools, I'll take anywhere that will accept me. I'm not gonna be picky. I don't want to, you know, look a gift horse in the mouth.

SPEAKER_02

Sure, sure. But you're a West Coast gal, and yeah, as we move out there and more programs, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

To be in the Western side of things, but well, thank you so very much, Adri.

SPEAKER_02

I am excited to get this out to my people. And yeah, I just really appreciate you sharing your expertise with the CAA profession. 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. 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.

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Mary Jeanne Roberts, CAA

Host