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Diagnose & Treat

Anesthesiologist Assistant (CAA)

Delivers anesthesia within a physician-led team — a shorter route into anesthesia, with a serious geographic catch.

Years after high school

6-7

Degree

Master's degree

Entrance exam

MCAT or GRE

Median pay

BLS does not publish a standalone national wage series for Certified Anesthesiologist Assistants. Compensation varies by market and employer, so this profile does not present an anesthesia-team proxy as a CAA median.

What the job is actually like

Operating-room work almost exclusively: pre-op assessment, induction, airway management, monitoring, and emergence, always under the direction of a supervising anesthesiologist. The rhythm is similar to a CRNA's day; the difference is the supervision model and where you are legally allowed to do it.

The path

  1. 014 years undergraduate with premedical prerequisites
  2. 02MCAT or GRE depending on the program
  3. 0324-28 month master's anesthesiologist assistant program
  4. 04NCCAA certifying examination
  5. 05State licensure — only available in some states

Good fit if

  • You want anesthesia work without medical school or an ICU prerequisite
  • You are comfortable practising under physician direction by design
  • You are flexible about which state you live in

Think twice if

  • You need to live in a specific state — check its licensure status first, because this is the single biggest constraint on the career
  • You want fully independent practice
  • You may later want to move outside anesthesia

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All salary figures here are median annual wages from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025 — the most recent full national dataset. 'Median' means half of workers earn more and half earn less. Three things to keep in mind: (1) pay varies enormously by state, city, setting, and experience — a nurse in California and a nurse in rural Alabama earn very different salaries; (2) training lengths are typical, not guaranteed, and programs differ; (3) these numbers change every year. Always verify current figures at bls.gov/ooh before making a decision. For context, the BLS median wage for all U.S. occupations was $50,980, while healthcare practitioner and technical occupations had a median of $86,530 — one of the reasons health care is such a stable field.