Awakened Anesthetist

PROCESS Listening to Life's Whispers: A Journey of Passion and Persistence ft. Yulanda Greene, CAA

• Season 4 • Episode 70

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Step into the world of Certified Anesthesiologist Assistants with Yulanda Greene as she shares her remarkable PROCESS to become a prominent CAA educator and leader. As the 2025 president of the Georgia Academy of Anesthesiologist Assistants, Yulanda passionately advocates for the profession while offering insight into the challenges and rewards of her career path. In this PROCESS interview, Yulanda shares the little nudges and whispers life gave her to keep advancing her career while remaining closely connected to patient care and education. If you're curious about your own next steps as a CAA or are considering venturing into the profession, Yulanda’s PROCESS is sure to expand your idea of what's possible.

Mentioned in this episode:

  • Email Yulanda @ yulanda.greene@emoryhealthcare.org 
  • Yulanda IG
  • Learn More NSU's Doctorate of Health Sciences with a Concentration in Education in Healthcare Professionals
  • Join GAAA and on IG


You can now text me! Questions/Suggestions

Join me for a LIVE PROCESS interview during the 2025 AAAA conference in Charlotte, North Carolina on Thursday, March 27th at 1pm. Get to know the person behind the presidency, as I interview our 2025 AAAA President, Nicole Moore (Cabell).


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Speaker 1:

It wasn't until I started working as a respiratory therapist. I would see anesthesia at the head of the bed, especially when we go to like the ORs, or if they were coming to the ICU to help us intubate and whatnot, and I would always see at least two people, but I never realized that it was an anesthesiologist and then a middle provider.

Speaker 2:

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

Speaker 2:

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 back to the Awakened Anesthetist podcast and the beloved process interview series podcast and the beloved process interview series. Again, I'm your host, mary Jean, and I just love doing these process episodes because they not only expand my idea for myself of what's possible, but I'm so proud to share these CAA stories with all of you. I know there are working CAAs who are listening, there are student AAs and there are prospective AA students all listening as well as, I'm sure, people sort of on the periphery, wondering what the heck a CAA is. So I'm just so proud to offer these process interviews as little glimpses at what it means to be a CAA, and today I am especially excited to be interviewing Yolanda Green.

Speaker 2:

Yolanda is a 2012 graduate of the Emory AA program. She became a CAA after getting her undergraduate degree in respiratory therapy and working as a respiratory therapist for five years. During the time she was working as an RT, she completed all her necessary prereqs for AA school and took the GRE, and then, of course, got into Emory and after she graduated in 2012, she began working as a CAA at a large academic hospital in Atlanta that's Emory University Hospital. She currently is still employed by that same hospital, but splits her full-time work between her clinical responsibilities and being the director of clinical rotations for the Emory AA program. Yolanda has a truly inspiring story, as you will soon hear, and what's unique to Yolanda is that she consistently followed those little whispers that her life was offering her, and she's gone on to continue her education after her AA degree and recently graduated with her doctorate of professional health sciences, and is the current 2025 president of the Georgia AAA, that's the Georgia State Component Society under the Quad A and if that's not impressive enough, yolanda was one of the most down-to-earth and approachable interviewees that I've had on the pod.

Speaker 2:

She was so generous with her story, sharing all the ups and downs and even part of the financial journey and burden of going to AA school and then following it up with a doctorate degree. Yolanda's process is a story about mentorship, and I call those people expanders, people who help you, see, to believe what's possible for yourself, because you're seeing someone who's just close enough to you that you relate to them and think, if they can do it, I can do it. And that's really been a theme in Yolanda's journey, and I know that Yolanda is going to offer that same expansion to any CAAs who are out there and wanting to feel more satisfied and fulfilled in their profession. They are wanting to stay open to growth and learning. Maybe you're considering looking at an advanced degree after finishing AA school or you're juggling full-time work and parenthood. Yolanda's process is truly a game changer. I can't wait for you all to get to know Yolanda.

Speaker 2:

So, without further ado, welcome Yolanda to the Awakened Anesthetist. All right, let's do the rapid fire. My most favorite favorite part. Okay, let me see what I want my most favorite favorite part. Okay, let me see what I want to know about you, yolanda. What did you want to be when you were a kid?

Speaker 1:

Well, I wanted to do African-American history. I was going to be like a professor in a university, so like in seventh grade. I don't remember what we were doing, I don't know if it was like African American history month or whatever, but I remember we had to like memorize this poem by Langston Hughes called Mother to the Son. And like learning that poem and like having to memorize it and we learned some other poems by other African Americans. It just kind of intrigued me to learn more about that. So I kind of went down that path and I thought it would be kind of cool to like teach other people the things that I learned. So then when I started working at a hospital and was exposed to like the healthcare side and seeing what they were doing, I was like, oh well, I want to do that as well. So in my mind I was going to like major in nursing and then do a minor in African American history.

Speaker 2:

Well, you're not too far off. You're still teaching, yeah, which we'll get into. What is the best show you've watched lately?

Speaker 1:

Hmm, let me think we watch. We tend to binge watch a lot of things. I think I would say Night Agent 2. I don't know if you've heard about that, but have not. It's basically about like, oh well, well, you got to watch both one and two, okay. So one, he is like I don't know if he's a cia agent, but he's stuck into a room with a phone and nothing ever happens. But then when other agents that are undercover like something happens, they call and they have to get like extracted and get help. So, and my agent too, now he's one of those undercover agents and starts to get blamed for some kind of like chemical weapon that's being built, and so he has to figure out who's actually doing it and how he needs to stop it. It's like a 10 episode series.

Speaker 2:

Okay, it's got like a born identity flair.

Speaker 1:

It feels like yeah, okay, yes, cool, except for he knows he's an Asian.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, would you consider yourself an extrovert or an introvert, yolanda?

Speaker 1:

Let's see here I would say primarily extrovert because I like to talk and kind of stand out there, but I mean an introvert. Like you know, we kind of sit here and we think about a lot of things. So I feel like when I'm in the OR and I am thinking about my patient and how I can manage them, I tend to be quiet that way, just thinking about like all the small details. But again an extrovert, like if I'm working as a team and I need to be out focused in the OR.

Speaker 2:

I can do that as well. And last one what would you do differently if money was no object, time was no object? What would you do? How would you spend your time?

Speaker 1:

I think I would travel a lot. You know, my dad was in the military and so we traveled all the time. We moved around probably every two to three years. And so we traveled all the time. We moved around like probably every two to three years. And now that I'm like on my own, I don't travel that much, which I kind of miss. So I think I would just do that, especially like because when I was younger I didn't have to pay for anything, obviously, but now I have to pay for everything. So, yeah, money with no object and I can do whatever, I will just pay for whatever trips and we would just pack up and just travel. Yeah, cool.

Speaker 2:

All right, let's get into the meat of things. And why don't you start us off with just kind of telling the listeners you know, your upbringing, your cultural background, maybe how you feel, like that shaped you as a person today?

Speaker 1:

Well, my parents are from the Caribbean, my father is from Trinidad and my mom's from jamaica and I guess, like you can really think about, I guess I'm the first generation caribbean american and we always kind of joke because I'm referred to as a trench american, because it's a little bit of all three. Um, I'm the only child but I do have a huge family. Like my dad has 11 siblings and my mom has four, so I have a lot of aunts, uncles and cousins. So, even though, like, I'm the only child, when I grew up we tend to be like facing their family members, so I always had people to, like you know, play with me as if they were my brothers and sisters.

Speaker 1:

Like I said, my dad was in the U us army for over 20 years and my upbringing would be considered like an army ran again, we moved a lot, we traveled a lot every two to three years, so my life consisted of meeting a lot of new, different, like different people, um, being exposed to different cultures, and at an early age I had to learn how to meet new people and be kind of self-sufficient, right? I guess that would help if you're an extrovert because, like, when you go to a new school. You have to kind of be willing to just be like hey, my name is such and such. You know, sometimes people will come and talk to like the new kid. But I was a new kid all the time so I kind of forced myself to like be out there.

Speaker 1:

You know, was a new kid all the time, so I kind of forced myself to like be out there. You know, and my parents taught me, like you know, be very independent and kind of, you know, just be open, make new friends and just to be a hard worker. So I feel like it shaped me into like being a go-getter, like if I want something, I know I have to work hard for it. Right, it's not just going to come to me passively. So I feel like that just kind of helped me reach like and achieve all the goals that I can even think of.

Speaker 2:

The makings of a CAA. I hear some threads of familiarity here. Why don't you share your first exposure? So it sounds like you weren't thinking CAA and you know you kind of came from this education path and then found out about medicine. So maybe take us to when you first heard or learned about the CAA profession and like what about? It caught your eye, I mean.

Speaker 1:

I think for most of us when we think of like health care, it's either a doctor or a nurse. So when I was first exposed to the hospital setting when I was in high school, I did see other professionals I mean like other fields and stuff like that, but not anesthesia related. It wasn't until I started working as a respiratory therapist. I would see anesthesia at the head of the bed, especially when we go to like the ORs or if they were coming to the ICU to help us intubate and whatnot, and I would always see at least two people. But I never realized that it was an anesthesiologist and a midline provider. I just assumed that, like they just worked in Paris, they always had backup or whatever. So you know, when I was birth care therapist, I was like it's going to be Archie for life, I'm not going back to school, good. And then one of my good friends, he had just started the Emory's PA program and he was like you know, you really should go back to school, maybe for your career. And I was like no, I'm fine. He's like you know, you don't have any kids, you're not married, like you don't really have anything that's holding you back, like this is free time almost for you, like, just consider it. I said okay, so went on the internet, looked at different PA professions and like the different fields that we can do, and I was like, okay, and I came across cardiology, surgical and then anesthesia PA came in and I also thought about pulmonary as well too, because I was like that makes sense. I'm already a respiratory therapist, just transitioned to pulmonary. We're all doing the same airway stuff.

Speaker 1:

But when the anesthesia came up, I was like, well, what is that? And that's when I started reading about it. And then I started remembering when I would see those two people at the head of the bed. I'm like, oh, so one's the anesthesiologist, one's the anesthetist. I said, okay, I like that and I just like the different things that we can do, primarily because we do the airway. And I was like, well, I'm already good at that, so that would be fantastic.

Speaker 1:

And when I started to shadow, I saw that, like people are super nervous to have surgery and realizing that an antidepressant provider is probably going to be the last person that has a chance to calm them down and then wake them back up and let them know everything was fine, that really resonated with me because I want to be there to take care of the patient, and knowing that I'm there to calm you down whether it's just talking, holding your hand, maybe giving a little meditation, and being able to take care of you through the procedure wake you up and you're like oh, I'm done, we've had surgery already. I feel fantastic and that's just really sat with me. So that's why I decided to become a CAA.

Speaker 2:

Do you think you would have been happy like now that you have the comparison of going through everything, becoming a CAA and we'll talk about getting your doctorate as well that you could have been happy as an RT? Because so many people, I think, find out about this profession a little bit later Maybe they've had a different career and then they find out about CAA and they're like is it worth it? Like oh gee, I'm already 10 years into doing this, whatever. Is it worth it to switch Like now? What would you say to those people?

Speaker 1:

I would say it's definitely worth the switch. I mean, if I knew about this first, I would have went to become a CDN before I was a respiratory therapist. To be honest with you, I liked the way I did the steps. But I will just do this Like we're one of the few people that can give whatever kind of drug we want without having like a handwritten order. We can just give whatever we want. We don't have to be like, oh, can you write me an order for time or an order for a fed room.

Speaker 1:

You know, and I will say like, as a menstrual therapist, the hospital that I was at we had a lot of autonomy. So and I worked overnight. So if I had to do something or make a change, you know, on the vent, or do a blood gas draw and do different things like that I could do that I would just tell the doctor like, hey, like I may have to call them or send my patient and say, hey, this is what's going on. I did a blood gas, I saw this, this is what I think needs to happen. Or I've already done X, y, Z. So usually, you know, it's fine because again, we have that huge autonomy. But I just feel like with anesthesia it's just completely different.

Speaker 1:

And also too, going back to what I was saying, like I like the fact that I can calm a patient down as an RT, but the most part they're already intubated and if they're not intubated already they're freaking out Right, and I have to do it Like I don't have a chance to like hold their hand and stuff like that, because maybe their steps are going down, their habitual breathing and they're panicking. I just don't get that one-on-one time to just let them relax. Yeah, you know, calm them down, do the procedure and wait them out yeah, so I think it's definitely working, do you think?

Speaker 2:

well, take us to finding Emory. That's where you found what you said was like the anesthesia PA, which was the CAA program, and you were already working in Georgia as an RT, correct?

Speaker 1:

Yep.

Speaker 2:

And found out about the Emory Master's of Science in Anesthesia program the AA school there. Talk us about being an RT previously before going to AA school and how that helped or hurt you or what your experience was like in AA school.

Speaker 1:

I think being an RT helped me in the sense that, like I knew how to run a ventilator machine, I knew how to intubate and do like art lines and blood gases and things of that nature. So I feel like it helped me there. But as a student, I will tell you that I have some preceptors. Be like, what are you doing? You don't know how to intubate. And I'm like, okay, you know I'm going to be humble, I'm not going to argue with you, tell me how you like to do it. And it's funny because one thing that I realized was that as an RT, when I go to intubate somebody, I am rushing, right, because they are in distress. Again, they may have low saturation, they're having some type of obstruction or they're coded and we need to get it aired. So we're not as gentle as we are with anesthesia. I will say and so that's what I think they were saying was like you don't know what you're doing, I'm just rushing, I'm putting it in there, versus with anesthesia, most of the things that we do are elected. We do have our emergency stuff, but for the most part it's elected. So I can take that time, I can optimize my patient, I can make sure that I am doing everything I need to do and minimize any kind of error in my phone.

Speaker 1:

So I thought that that was very helpful and I was able to help my other classmates who were struggling with maybe, you know, using a machine or doing art lines and reading blogging offices and things of that nature. It also helped me because I was already exposed to like the hospital and like working as a team and seeing the different type of professions yes, which you know can be very intimidating. You have all the different people in the OR and they're all looking at you and you're like I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. So I think that helps. And you know, talking to a patient, I can talk to somebody. I know that and I know that sounds like very simple and you're like anybody can talk to anybody. But it's different when you're taking care of them and you're like, okay, I have to stick you with this, you know, and show you that I'm competent, even though it's my day one. You know clinical like how do I bring that all together? So I think in that aspect it did help.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I completely agree.

Speaker 2:

I think the AA profession is kind of like at this juncture where hospital or medical experience, while not required, is starting to become like you have to have it in order to now push your application up to the top.

Speaker 2:

And, you know, interesting because our CRNA counterpoint, you know, have said oh well, you have to be a nurse first in order to be able to understand anesthesia and you know all of those nuances to it. And it's just an interesting where we're like it absolutely helps, but it doesn't have to be able to understand anesthesia and you know all of those nuances to it. And it's just an interesting where we're like it absolutely helps, it doesn't have to be nursing, it could be RT, it could be engineering, it could be being a teacher, like there's so many other skills from other arenas that will help you in different ways and, as you said, hurt you in different ways, like your intubation technique was mastered on a situation that you know we don't usually prioritize absolute speed above everything. So, yeah, it's just that's really interesting, I think, as our profession evolves. Just to hear your perspective, share your first job out of school, like was it when did you graduate? Was it real easy to get a job, and where did you go?

Speaker 1:

So my first job was at Emory. Once I graduated in 2012, I started working at Emory Midtown and I just stayed there ever since. That's one of the reasons why I actually chose Emory's CAA program is because I was looking at their stats. They had a high first pass for the certification board exam and job placement was pretty much 100%. It's not that they help you get a job, but I think because we have so many different rotations that you get an opportunity to go to so many different places and everybody pretty much finds their little niche and they're able to find a job. I feel like most of our senior students, when they graduate, probably maybe halfway through their little niche and they're able to find a job. I feel like most of our senior students when they graduate, probably like maybe halfway through their senior year, they already have a job. They already know what they're doing. The people who may not have a job closer to graduation it's not because they can't find one, it's because they don't know which one they want to pick. They have like five different job opportunities and they're just like I don't know. So everybody finds a place to work.

Speaker 1:

So that's why, like I said, I went to Emory and then I just stayed at Midtown. It's funny because as I went to different places, I didn't really see myself staying in Georgia At the time. The market was kind of saturated down here. So I was like, again, coming from a military background, I have no problem picking up and going somewhere else. So I did do a lot of traveling. And then my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, I was like, well, you come with me to these different places and I can kind of see myself, you know, moving to and see what you think. And he didn't want to leave Atlanta.

Speaker 2:

So I was like, ok, you know Meaning on your rotations, like on your clinical year, you went to a lot of different places to check them out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay. So yeah, with MRE, we want you to do at least two rotations away from the Atlanta area, so that you can see one, how anesthesia is done in different places, and two, just see what else is out there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah totally, you know. So I think I went to four different places and I was like oh, we'll just see how our thing is. And I mean all rotations were really, really good. And I love Midtown. I was there actually my first year and it was like you should come and work with me. I'm like all right, we'll sign me a contract and here we go, you know.

Speaker 2:

And something about the CAA profession that, if you're new to the profession or considering the profession, you might not realize, is that a lot of the education like the hands-on and affiliated. I'm assuming you were teaching a lot right away. Tell us about that experience. Did you love it? Did you hate it? What was being an early grad teaching like for you?

Speaker 1:

So I did love it a lot and I was very surprised that I liked it so much. I remember when we were still in school, some of my classmates they were thinking like, oh, I want to teach this class, I want to be a preceptor and I'm just like. You know, that's cool. You know I don't necessarily want to like get in front of everybody, like 30, 40 students, and teach a whole lecture, but I can probably do like lab or a smaller set. And I think, like in the Emory system, they don't usually give you a student right when you graduate, right, Because we know what we know. But we still got to get our feet wet. We have to feel comfortable being by ourselves, right. So some people say, like that first year out is like your third year school. You're just kind of figuring out like, all right, now I'm by myself, I don't have somebody in the corner who's going to like jump and tell me what to do, so I just got to figure out by myself. So I think like that transition of just being by myself and then have students helped a lot, yeah, but I mean I loved it and I just like to see students come in. They don't know anything and I can teach them something. It doesn't have to be everything, but there's even one little thing Like if we talk about just anti-emetics and the different receptors that we can use, meaning different drugs that we can give to make the person feel better amazing. And then, like, as I would see more and more students you know I would see them when they're their first year and then it's time to get to their senior year, and then when they graduate and just seeing like the progress was amazing for me I was like okay, so, like you know, let me give back, when I was a student I had preceptors like that, but not always. And sometimes, you know, you're at a rotation by yourself and you may not really feel comfortable asking different people. So, just knowing that, like I would want someone to like kind of look out for me, pull me to the side and say, okay, well, what can we work on today? Or how can we improve you know your skills I said let me just take that with me, as I'm a preceptor myself.

Speaker 1:

So I see my students, I say, all right, what do you want to work on today? What's your plan If they do something that's completely different from me? Because, as you know, anesthesia can be done a million one different ways. I always ask them, like okay, well, tell me your thought process. Like, does it make sense? To me? And for the most part, like their thought process, it makes sense, it's right. It's just something different from what I do. So I'll just say, okay, I like that idea, but this is how I do it. Let's try my way, and that way you can kind of see which way works best for you. Or this is another tool to go into your box in case your way doesn't work. Now you can pull out my way.

Speaker 2:

Yes, just that humility that you're talking about, of being open as the instructor, as the practicing CAA, being open to the fact that your way is not the only way, even though it's the way you do it and works out great, is a really hard lesson to learn. As a first year clinical instructor, I have a lot of thoughts on exactly that, because first year clinical instructors are so critical to the development of the AA student. I mean it is just an absolute turning point in their you know matriculation to have a really, as you said, instructor who's like let's learn together, let's, you know, come to me. I want you to feel comfortable, like that is a gift to students. So it sounds like you really embraced teaching. And then in COVID, when COVID hit Emory, how did that change what you were doing at the hospital, or maybe what you thought your future of your career would be?

Speaker 1:

So in 2020, when COVID started that August, that's when I actually started working at Emory's Masters of Medical Science program in anesthesiology. I was a faculty member at the time and I was hired to primarily do lab exercises and then I started to give a couple of airway lectures and like little things here and there. All of that, all the lectures were on Zoom but obviously, like our labs, we were in person. When, you know, the School of Medicine said it was okay, but we had to wear masks and we usually couldn't hear each other and we couldn't do a lot of the lab exercise, especially like with the airway lecture, because we had to wear masks, and those are very important.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, crazy, crazy time. I just it's a wow. That that's your indoctrination into teaching was to teach anesthesia on Zoom and then in the lab with, like you know, the crazy mask and the whole setup. You can actually hear each other. Yeah, wow, exactly. And then you took this big step where you're, I assume, realized that, like, teaching is going to be a big part of my future career and you decided to get your doctorate. I would love for you to share the conversation you had with Dr Monroe and just who she is and how that conversation really changed your trajectory to make you, you know, choose a doctorate of professional health science.

Speaker 1:

So Dr Monroe is our program director and you know, as I mentioned before, I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor, I'm a. I didn't have any formal training into teaching, so I relied on my colleagues that were around me who had been doing it for a while to figure out, like what, like what can I do to become better? And I can't. I can't remember what we said exactly or what the conversation was between Dr Moreau and I that day, or even how it got started, but I know we eventually started talking about her journey into pursuing her doctorate, about her journey into pursuing her doctorate, and whenever I thought about doctorate I was like, oh, if I get my doctorate, like my only option would be to become a program director, which I'm like I don't really know if that's what I want to do quite yet, but then she was telling me that, like, having your doctorate, you can do much more stuff than just being a program director.

Speaker 1:

Like if I wanted to be a dean or associate dean or anything like that, you know the size of living and being a new teacher like, again, I didn't really have a desire at that time to say okay, I want to take those big roles like that quite yet, but I figured I might as well get my doctorate now, when I had time and I say that in air quotes because you know, did we really have time in COVID? I want to ask you about that, but go on. But I say, you know, let me just go ahead and get my doctorate degree. So that way, if the position comes up that I want to pursue, I already have it. So that's why I said, I'm going to go ahead and do it.

Speaker 2:

Wow, you are the go-getter energy like poster child, get our energy like poster child, because what we haven't said is that you were working and teaching full-time. So you were teaching at the master's, you know the aa program at emory. You were working clinically. You have two children, correct, and at the time they were little um, and then you thought, you know what would be a great idea? Yeah, let me go get my doctorate. Yeah, how did you find the best fit program? Like I think, as you know, personally as a CAA, I have absolutely thought about getting further education and how having those other letters behind my name would help me, you know, depending on my different career paths and choices, and it just seems so overwhelming to know where to go, what to pick, what's what would help Like. How did you make that decision?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, you know the CIA community is like amazing because you have so many resources. So, you know, I said I talked to Dr Moreau about you know the school that she went to and the doctorate path that she took and honestly, I was like talking to her, it worked just fine for her. So let me just follow her footsteps, go to the school she went to and, you know, get the same degree. We're all good.

Speaker 1:

But when I researched it, the problem was is that they did a lot of in-person classes and I feel like it was downtown, like South Atlanta, and I live north of Atlanta. So I'm like I don't know if I'm going to be able to like drive down there, balance my schedule with school, work and my family. So I was like maybe I can't do that, maybe I need to look for something that's more online or it has less in-person class. So I ended up reaching out to another former professor and she also got her doctorate and I saw that she did a different path. So, dr Monroe, she got her PhD and the other person I talked to, they got their EDD, which is like an education. So obviously I looked it up. I was like, all right, well, what's the PhD, what's the EDD, and you know, on top of that, it's kind of funny because, like in college, I had three roommates and one got a PhD, two got EDDs, and I never knew it was different, I just knew that they got the doctorate degrees.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I had no idea.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, right, like I was like, oh wow, there's like difference. So I realized that the main difference between the two is that, like, the EDD is designed for practitioners practitioners while your PhD is more designed for researchers, which I could still do either one, right? So I just kind of kept researching, looking at different schools I think I looked at one at John Hopkins, nova, and just a whole bunch of them, right. And I kept thinking like, what do I really want to get out of my degree? Like, when I get it, what do I want to do with it? And you know, I knew that, like the journey would be hard and I wanted to make sure that if I'm going to do something like this, I want to at least enjoy it, right? So, whatever the degree is, like the subject matter, it needs to be something that I want to really do and focus on. So I ended up looking at NOVA, because that program or that school, I'm sorry offers both programs like a PhD and a doctorate in health science. So I saw that health science is like OK, health science is for me because that's what I'm doing already, versus just saying I'm going to do a EDD which is just primarily in teaching, like I wanted to do health sciences and on top of that, their doctorate in health science has like a different, like three different concentrations that you can pick, and one of them was the education health.

Speaker 1:

So I talked to the admission office and I was like, all right, I know there's a difference between PhD and a doctorate in health science, but, like you have to, what is like the big difference? You know, um, are they seeing the same as far as like doctorate level? And they said yes, and they basically asked me well, what do you want to do with it? Do you want to practice stuff that you like, apply what you learned to your practice, or do you want to do a lot of research? I'm like, well, I don't really want to do a lot of research. I really want to learn what I'm being taught and then apply it to what I'm actually physically doing, because I'm still a practicing TA.

Speaker 1:

So that's why I ended up picking the Doctorate of Health Science at NOVA and then, once I started my concentrations, I picked the Education and Healthcare, because I was like, all right, everything like the stars aligned at the time. So I found a degree that I could apply to my practice, that had a concentration in what I was doing already as a teacher to my practice. That had a concentration in what I was doing already as a teacher, and then, on top of that, most of the stuff was online. So I was like, okay, that's fantastic. They actually only required two classes to be in person, but because of COVID, they decided to keep those classes online as well. We just had to like do more Zoom sessions. So I was like win-win.

Speaker 2:

Well, we just had to like do more Zoom sessions. So I was like win-win. Everything is fantastic, right, meant to be. Do you mind sharing? Because I feel like we just all started talking about money as CAAs. Like we finally started like talking about salaries and stuff. Was it more expensive to get your doctorate than it was to go to CAA school? Or you know what was the financial investment like?

Speaker 1:

You know, frankly, it wasn't more to get my doctorate than to actually go to CAA school. I forgot how much it was. It might have been like 50 grand or something like that to get the doctorate. But as far as finance, yeah, yeah. So another thing right, it wasn't like crazy expensive because Emory does not reimburse for a doctorate outside of a doctorate in nursing, so I had to pay for all this stuff out of pocket. Wow, right, yeah, exactly. So, again, working family and the little kids, because you know they're expensive, that's a lot. So I ended up just like looking at different credit cards, like through Chase, um, and I think I did one through Navy Fed, but I looked for ones that had like a interest, like free for 15 or 18 months. I would just charge each semester on there and then go back and pay for it later. Wow. So I looked out that way.

Speaker 2:

You are so resourceful, I'm just so inspired. I looked out that way, gosh. You are so resourceful, I'm just so inspired. You know you got to do what you got to do. Can you give us just like a day in your life? What did it look like to be you circa 2022? Working, going to school, taking care? Can you remember that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I remember before I started I was like this is fantastic, this is a good idea. And then when I started I was like what am I doing? This is stressful Because, you know, depending on if I was at the Emory program or I was at the hospital, like I'm up in the morning and I'm doing that work, right, yeah, teaching or taking care of patients Then I got to come home and, depending on what time I get off, I try to have like dinner with my kids, but sometimes, like they may have already had dinner so they're in the bed.

Speaker 1:

So I kind of relax with them, spend time there, try to get them off to sleep and then afterwards like 10, 11 o'clock at night. Now I'm studying and doing all of my schoolwork and I think that worked for like the most part, because my mom was very helpful. Like she would always make sure that she's there to get them from school when they went back to school and then when my husband got off of work, they would kind of switch off and he would take care of them, making sure they you know, if they hadn't had dinner ready, he would feed them, he would make sure they went to bed and got their stuff ready for school the next day. But I mean, I tried to like do some things, but if I had an exam or I had to study for something, then I'd say, ok, I can't like play with y'all right now, let me just study. But I spent a lot of nights like doing all my work.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I can only imagine. I mean, all you had was nice, there wasn't any other time.

Speaker 1:

Exactly.

Speaker 2:

Goodness. And so just, it sounds like a family mutual decision of, like mom's going to do this. It's going to be hard for a couple of years and we're going to get through that, yes, wow, ok. Well, after all that, and you have this fabulous education that really very few CAA professors have. Very few of us have an additional degree, and especially professors. A lot of it is on the job training. Like, as you said, a lot of them aren't getting doctorates or masters of education. So how did this change the way you teach, or what did you incorporate that you didn't have, like the tools that you didn't have prior to teaching at the MREA program?

Speaker 1:

I feel like it really gave me the tools to teach right. Many of my classes we had projects that focus on creating something that needed to be taught to students and because you know it's health science and we're teaching healthcare professions like it was always geared around there. So we talked about different techniques that could be used to teach a concept. We learned how to like build a program and talked about how budgeting would affect it and what kind of classes do we want to teach. What kind of credits would be involved? Who did you need as far as faculty stakeholders be involved? Who did you need as far as faculty stakeholders? You know all those things like that.

Speaker 1:

I feel like the biggest thing that I took from most of these classes is that you know you're teaching students and they don't grasp the task, like everybody doesn't learn the same way, and I feel like you know if you don't know how to change your teaching concept, like they just won't get it.

Speaker 1:

And I feel like you know maybe back in the day you had a teacher and they're like I'm going to teach it this way and you either get it or you don't. But learning through my doctorate degree, I learned that okay, I say something and I'll look into a crowd. I see I have half the people who understand it and then the other half was like a deer in the headlight. Then I say, all right, let's switch it up, let me kind of teach you from this concept. Or maybe instead of just doing a lecture, we're going to do hands-on stuff, or we may do a small group thing where I say, okay, here's a question. I want you to break off into pairs, let's talk about it. We can come back Right, so you just learn those kind of things, and I feel like it just helped me engage with the student better.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, I just I wish what's in your brain could go into every CAA's brain. Just because of clinically teaching you know like meaning in the operating room and in front of a classroom there's a lot of skills that would help us be better teachers and I don't think that's shameful to say. I think a lot of medical education is built on the backs of lay people teaching students, and my wheels are spinning, like how can we take that knowledge that you have and other people I mean, you're not the only CAA, of course I don't mean to say that no one else has done this extra education but and get it into the hands of first year clinical instructors really Interesting, yolanda. Okay, my wheels are turning. I'm thinking.

Speaker 1:

It's a good thought process, right? Because one thing we learned about was cognitive overload and we were always constantly talking about like don't give too much information at once or don't put too much stuff on the side. And it was funny because last year at the Quad A conference that came up about cognitive learning for the students and for the preceptors. So I was like, okay, so everybody now is thinking about this stuff and that's something that I didn't think about when I became a teacher. I was like, oh my gosh, how many times did I kind of overload them with too much information and they just kind of got that little glass over their eyes and it was like I'm glazed out. I don't know anymore, I'm overloaded.

Speaker 2:

Totally Well. I would love to just like sit and learn more from you, but, okay, everyone who's listening, you're not going to believe that Yolanda is doing more things than just what she just mentioned, Because you just recently accepted the presidency for the Georgia Academy of Anesthesiologists Assistance. So the state component society for the Quad A. You know every state that AA's work in. We have one and Georgia has, I assume, probably one of the biggest and oldest, you know, as Georgia's the first AA state. But you are now, Madam President and how did this happen? Now, Yolanda, Well.

Speaker 1:

So I was on social media one night and I saw a post and it was like you know, the GAA needs your help. We need volunteers. Obviously, at the time I had no idea that the presidency was going to be you know what they needed, but I looked into it. I said, ok, well, let me just talk to some of my colleagues that are part of the G2LA and see, like, well, what do you need, right? So I worked with at the time it was the current president and the immediate past president and I was like, hey, I saw the post, like you know, what is it that y'all really need help with? I'm thinking like you know stuff behind the scenes or something. They both laughed and I should have realized then that it was something more right. Yes, you're getting ripped in, right, exactly. So it was like, well, you know, we actually need a president. I was like, hmm.

Speaker 1:

So at first in my mind I said no, nope, that's not my thing. I don't do like in front of the scene and behind the scene. But then I said the organization that supports my profession needs help. So I was like you know what, I'll do it. And it helped that, like they said, they would help me along the way, and they were very confident that I could do it. So like again. Resources right.

Speaker 1:

So if they see something in me that gives them confidence to say I can do it and they're willing to help me. Why not Granted? It's scary, right, because this is something that's big, but again, I have the resources and I know I can do it.

Speaker 2:

The blessing and the curse of being a CAA and, you know, a high performing person just in general is that you could do things, and so things are offered to you, and in the CAA profession we need everyone doing things like there are so few of us. We need people doing things and you just happen to have some major major things come your way, which says a lot about you. I mean, I think you know you are clearly a very capable, empowered, high energy person and you know what a wonderful person to have as a lead CAA. So thank you so much for saying yes, but also tell us how it's going juggling all of this.

Speaker 1:

It's going we actually have the GSA, which is the State Department of Financial Advisors, their winter forum. So I'm getting all my reports together so that I can, you know, get ready to tell them, like, how the GAA is working. But you know, it's really an honor and a blessing to actually have this opportunity. I have a platform to advocate for CAs in Georgia and strengthen the profession. You know we need mentors and it just helps make our profession grow and it gains the recognition for all the goals that we have. So I love it. It's going well so far. Again, it's only my second month in, so we'll talk at the end of the year, but it will be just fine, my second month in, so we'll talk at the end of the year, but it will be just fine, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you have so many people there it sounds like willing to support, and I presume the Georgia AAA is a very well-organized oiling machine since it's been around for a while. But yeah, it's not nothing. It is certainly a huge commitment to your profession to be that president's, which is that the CAA profession is uniquely like uniquely able to help someone live their life by design and what you think about that.

Speaker 1:

I would agree with you on that. So, like the CAA profession, it offers me and everybody like a unique balance of flexibility, financial security and professional fulfillment. You know, it allows me and others to tailor our own personal and professional lives with like whatever goal we want. And these goals could be achieving like a healthy work-life balance, pursuing leadership positions such as involvement in the GAA, making a big impact on patient care, or like even some kind of combination, because because, like, clearly I'm doing a little bit of everything but, yeah, I'm able to take care of my patients, teach students the art of anesthesia and still be a mother and wife all at the same time. And you know, you have like, like, actually doing anesthesia, I can do hospital stuff, I can do outpatient things, you know. So you just have a good variety of flexibility, doing whatever you want.

Speaker 2:

Mm, hmm, yes, and you're just such I like to use the word expanders like even along your journey I can hear how, oh well, I saw someone do it who's a CAA and kind of close enough to me that it seems like if they did it I can do it. And your story is that for everyone listening right now, including myself. So I just really want to thank you for sharing the whole breadth of your story and I want to wish you luck. As the Georgia Academy of Anesthesiologists Assistant President, everything about us is a mouthful. Everything, yes, everything. Are you open to people contacting you? There's a lot of prospective AAs here who have a lot of questions and just really want resources. If you're open to that, what's the best way for people to contact you?

Speaker 1:

Yes, I am very open to that, you know. Like I've said before, you know, I feel like we cannot, we can't forget our journey to becoming a CEA and we have to mentor so that we can make sure that our profession thrives and it grows. So, like I said, I'm very open to people contacting me. I think the best way to do it is that they email me. Okay, and that would be Yolanda Green at emoryhealthcareorg.

Speaker 2:

I know it's a mouthful. Well, of course it is, because it's us. I'll put that all in the show notes too, just so people can have an easy way to contact you. Yeah, I just I'm so appreciative of you coming on here and sharing your story. I know your time is precious and valuable, yeah, so I just I really thank you and I wish you all the luck this year.

Speaker 1:

Thank you and I'm so grateful for you allowing me to be a part of your podcast. This was really good. It was fun, awesome.

Speaker 2:

I had fun, it was good, awesome. All right, thanks, yolanda. Thank you, I hope you loved that episode as much as I did. If you were as inspired by Yolanda as I was, the best thing you can do is to directly share this episode with a friend, a CAA colleague, a prospective AA student in your life. Tell them why this process interview meant so much to you and why you think they would love it. That's really the best way to spread Yolanda's process story and the mission of this podcast, which is to expand what's possible for all CAAs listening and anyone who wants to become one.

Speaker 2:

I have loved doing this podcast. This season four run with all of you. We are nearing the end of season four. The season four finale will take place live at the 2025 annual Quad A conference in Charlotte, north Carolina. If you're planning on attending that conference, I would love to see you on Thursday, march 27th at 1 pm. You can check the app or the online brochure to see exactly the date, time and room, because we know how these things change.

Speaker 2:

I am currently laying plans for season five, seeing where my life takes me, you all probably have heard me talk about CAA Matters, the wellness curriculum I designed for first-year students, and that will be starting during the 2025 academic calendar. So I have a few things up in the air. I will not be stepping away from this podcast totally. I will be back for season five. I just don't know exactly what season five will look like. So if you want to stay the most up to date, you can follow me on Instagram at Awakened Anesthetist or join my newsletter. I will be communicating with you all there first and we'll let you know when I know. But before the end of season four, we do have a couple more episodes to get excited about. So again, I hope you enjoyed listening to Yolanda's process and now go out and share this episode. Let's talk soon, y'all. Episode. Let's talk soon, y'all. Okay. Yay, great job, that was so fun. Okay, I'm going to press stop record. It just takes us.

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Mary Jeanne Roberts, CAA

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