Awakened Anesthetist

Your Complete Guide to Understanding Certified Anesthesiologist Assistants: Pt. 1 What is a CAA?

• Mary Jeanne, Certified Anesthesiologist Assistant • Season 4 • Episode 57

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Curious about what it truly means to be a Certified Anesthesiologist Assistant (CAA)? You're in the right place! From nearly two decades of experience, I share a clear and comprehensive breakdown of the CAA profession. Think of me as your older sister or best friend, guiding you step-by-step through the essentials—from what CAAs actually do to how much money we make, no topic is off limits. Whether you're an aspiring AA student or simply exploring a career in medicine, this guide equips you with the insights you need to understand the CAA profession.

In Part 1 we dive into the foundation of what it means to be a CAA. I'll clarify common lingo, highlight the distinctions between CAAs and other anesthesia professionals, and provide vital information for those prepping for AA school interviews. By the end of this episode, you'll not only grasp the basics but also appreciate the nuanced and vital position we hold within the anesthesia care team and the broader medical community. 

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Awakened Anesthetist podcast, the first podcast to highlight the CAA experience.

Speaker 1:

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 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. Hello Awakened Anesthetist community, welcome to this new little series I'm doing I'm calling it Understanding CAAs and basically I want to be the older sister, the best friend, who really breaks down from the inside what a certified anesthesiologist assistant or a CAA, what that is in terms of what we do in the medical field, how we get there, where we can work, where we can't work, sort of all of the do's and don'ts and highs and lows and just give it to you really plainly, because I know that if you are a prospective AA student right now, or someone who maybe wants to be in medicine but not sure in what area, it's really hard to just find very clear, direct information that's not using words that you don't quite understand, and even if you do understand it, it's nice to hear someone from the inside just give it to you plainly, and so that's what I'm doing here. I really hope these episodes are helpful. I hope that they're sort of short and sweet and information given to you in little bursts so that you can take it along your journey and, if you one day become a CAA, I hope this helps you in that journey to join our profession.

Speaker 1:

So in the first episode of this mini series, I'm going to just be really basic and break down what is a certified anesthesiologist assistant. I'm going to clue you in on some of the really common lingo and what you would need to know at a very basic level, as well as information that you're going to want to have mastered if you are interviewing to be enrolled in an AA school. You're really going to want to have a very clear understanding of what a CAA is, who we are in the anesthesia care team, how we fit into the larger medical picture and really just understand the profession that you one day may be getting into. Let's start from the very beginning and just make very clear that a CAA is a Certified Anesthesiologist Assistant. Caa is an acronym for our profession and in medicine in general. There are a lot of acronyms. I'm going to be giving some of those to you today, but it's just a way to speak, sort of a medical jargon way to speak, and it becomes pretty sort of back-of-your-hand knowledge eventually. But then you get into a different group of people who aren't medical and you realize that you're speaking entirely other language. So a CAA is a Certified Anesthesiologist Assistant, and you can tell that just by our name alone.

Speaker 1:

We are defined by other professions, meaning an anesthesiologist, and so I would love to break down what a CAA is not in order to give you a clear picture of what a CAA actually is. So here are a few professions that are involved in anesthesia but are not CAAs. So a CAA is not a physician, or also called an anesthesiologist, or, more recent times, these people are called physician anesthesiologists. So we are not any of those things. A physician, an anesthesiologist or a physician anesthesiologist refers to someone in the anesthesia workforce who has gone to medical school, done an anesthesia-specific residency and may or may not have done an even further education called a fellowship. A certified anesthesiologist assistant, as our name would indicate, is an assistant to this type of physician, a physician, anesthesiologist. Okay, let's move on to another person who's in the anesthesia workforce.

Speaker 1:

A CAA is also not a CRNA, a CRNA. A CRNA is a nurse anesthesia provider, and that acronym stands for certified registered nurse anesthetist. This type of anesthesia provider is often confused with a CAA and vice versa, because when both a CAA and a CRNA are employed at the same hospital, they almost always do exactly the same job, and so it's hard for the other people who are encountering both of these professions to distinguish who is who. The difference between CAAs and CRNAs are many and also few, and that's a conversation for another day. But a CAA is not a certified registered nurse anesthetist, a CRNA anesthetist, a CRNA. Okay, let's keep going.

Speaker 1:

A CAA is also not an anesthesia technician. I had to Google what exactly an anesthesia technician is, because I know an anesthesia technician to be someone who aids an entire anesthesia department and is often involved in things like ordering anesthesia equipment, stocking anesthesia equipment. Depending on the hospital that the anesthesia technician works at, they can do slightly more high level things like setting up monitoring. They can check an anesthesia machine to make sure it's working properly, and so on and so forth. So an anesthesia technician is someone who does not actually deliver anesthesia but supports the people who do deliver anesthesia, and it is a full-blown, wonderful career. It is often a career that CAAs recommend prospective students look into if they're considering becoming a CAA, because you work within the team to help support the anesthesia team and you can see from the inside what it's like to deliver anesthesia.

Speaker 1:

Okay, we have one more what a CAA is not, and this one can be a little bit tricky. So let me break it down for you. We are not always an anesthetist. So you may notice there's a difference between the word anesthesiologist and anesthetist, but when people are referring to those who give anesthesia, oftentimes they refer to any of those people as anesthetist. Now I will say that physician anesthesiologists do not consider themselves anesthetist.

Speaker 1:

From the physician anesthesiologist perspective, an anesthetist refers to someone who does not have a medical degree, a medical degree. So a CAA can be an anesthetist sometimes, but we're not an anesthetist all the time. So let me just be a little bit more clear, because this one's confusing. So similar to how in an anesthesia group there are CAAs and CRNAs who work interchangeably delivering anesthesia. A patient may say, oh, you were my anesthetist last time, and if they're not referring to you, the CAA, they could be referring to another anesthesia provider, like a CRNA, and they also could be misnomering a physician anesthesiologist as an anesthetist. So a CAA is sometimes an anesthetist in the context that you were saying the word anesthetist in reference to a human being who also identifies as a CAA.

Speaker 1:

Now I just want to put a teeny caveat because also this languaging is just for the United States. I do know that in England in particular, the United Kingdom in general, the languaging there is anesthetist and I do believe that can sometimes refer to a physician anesthesia provider, but that's in the United Kingdom and not here in the United States, and so here an anesthetist really should refer to someone who's a non-physician anesthesia provider. Okay, hopefully that has cleared up some of the lingo and some of the acronyms. Now let me tell you what specifically a CAA is, now that we've covered what we're not. A CAA a Certified Anesthesiologist Assistant is a master's level anesthesia provider that works within the anesthesia care team model to deliver anesthesia. So I want to come back to the term or the idea of anesthesia care team model here in just a little bit, because it's a very important distinguisher for what a CAA is from other types of anesthesia professionals. But first I want to give you a better idea on what specific responsibilities a CAA has, so that you know what you're getting into if you want to do this.

Speaker 1:

So a CAA is going to be licensed to do all of these things, but depending on the hospital and the anesthesia practice, they may or may not be doing all of these things in the course of a day or a week. So we are licensed to collect a patient's health history prior to the anesthetic and collaborate on an anesthetic plan with a physician anesthesiologist. We are licensed to induce anesthesia, meaning to start anesthesia. We are licensed to maintain a patient's level of anesthesia, meaning giving more or giving less of all the various drugs and accessories that can go into delivering anesthesia. And we also are responsible for waking a patient up from anesthesia.

Speaker 1:

Now, while the patient's asleep, we are licensed to secure the patient's airway in a variety of ways. We are licensed to place invasive meaning inside the body or non-invasive meaning on the external, outside of the body monitoring devices. So a non-invasive monitoring device that we put on very regularly is a blood pressure cuff, and an invasive monitor that we put in very regularly is called an arterial line and there are so many other types of monitoring devices that we put on and in patients. And then, in a big picture way, a certified anesthesiologist assistant is responsible in making decisions for the patient's physiologic and pharmacologic status, and we're also responsible for transitioning the patient's care into a recovery mode, whether we transition into an actual physical recovery room or an intensive care unit room or some other place in the hospital. We are responsible for taking someone through the phases of anesthesia and dropping them off safely to the next provider who will be caring for them.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so now that you know what we're responsible for, let me color in the picture a little bit more with that anesthesia care team phrase, because, remember, a CAA is a master's level anesthesia provider that works within the anesthesia care team model to deliver anesthesia. And so all of those responsibilities that I just listed, that we are licensed and capable and oftentimes do can only be done at a hospital or a facility or a surgery center or an operating room location that is being supervised by a physician anesthesiologist who is immediately available to collaborate on care, on their patient's anesthesia care. So let me tell you more plainly about what this actually looks like, for example, in the state of Missouri and in many states. One anesthesiologist remember that's the medical doctor, the physician, the physician anesthesiologist can supervise up to four non-physician anesthesia providers, of which CAAs are one option and another option would be a CRNA. And that is the instance where, I have said previously, caas and CRNAs. Their work looks identical when both of those professions are working within the anesthesia care team model, which again is a type of way to deliver anesthesia where one physician, one physician anesthesiologist, is supervising up to four let's call it CAAs in four separate operating room locations or four separate anesthetizing locations, and that single physician is responsible for the anesthesia care that's delivered in all four of those locations, but the actual anesthesia is delivered by the CAA. And this model was created to meet the demands of the medical community and all of the surgeries that need to get done and the fact that there are not enough physician anesthesiologists to place one physician anesthesiologist in each anesthetizing location so that every human being on planet earth, or at least in the United States, is put to sleep by a physician. And so, because that's not possible, physician anesthesiologists in the 1960s created this profession, our profession called certified anesthesiologist assistants, to be an extension of a physician to be trained, to have a master's level education to deliver anesthesia while being supervised by a physician anesthesiologist.

Speaker 1:

So hopefully that helps clear up any questions that maybe you've been too scared to ask. It is a little confusing. You're not wrong to sort of not quite understand how all the moving pieces come together. If you are prospective AA or if you're a friend or family of a CAA and you're listening to this because they sent it to you. It is a bit confusing when you're not on the inside of it, because oftentimes people just the general public only meet their anesthesia provider either right before they become unconscious or while they're unconscious, and so you're a little fuzzy on what's exactly happening and who's doing it to you. So I hope this is helpful.

Speaker 1:

I hope this mini-series finds those people who are interested in this profession and wanting to learn more. I'm going to be talking about all sorts of other things, like how much money a CAA normally makes, where we can work. If you are practicing CAA and you feel like I really missed a point here, let me know. You can text me or chat me just by hitting the link in the show notes. As always, you can follow me on Instagram at AwakendAnesthetist for more behind the scenes. You can join my AwakendAnesthetist email community and receive a newsletter about once a month-ish, and I want you to know that. The number one thing you can do to support this podcast is to send it right now to another prospective AA student or CAA in your life who you think would enjoy this episode. The more we can one-to-one tell people about this podcast, the further and farther it's going to go within the CAA community and extend outwards. So thank you so much for listening everyone. I hope this was helpful. Let's talk soon.

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Mary Jeanne Roberts, CAA

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