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Marc and Shantall close out Season 1 live from the FinCon podcast booth in Palm Springs, weeks after AANA's Annual Congress in Boston, where 4,500 CRNAs and SRNAs filled one building. It'sthe first time they've recorded in the same room since the show started.

They get into the real shift away from "nurses eat their young" and toward community over competition, and what they'd tell an SRNA whose confidence takes a hit because everyone else seems to have gotten a memo they missed. They also talk about representation in the field: the Latine CRNA Association's launch event in Boston, one of the most emotional moments of the whole trip, and a quick, honest look at why pulse oximetry can read differently depending on skin pigment, a topic they're saving a full episode for next season.

Then they make it official. Starting next month, Clock Out & Connect is launching The BreakRoom, a free monthly live Q&A where you can ask Marc and Shantall anything, anonymously or on camera. 

The Break Room is open for registration!

(October 28, 2026 at 7:00 PM EST)

Sign up here:

https://clockoutandconnect.com/breakroom

Twelve episodes. First time in the same room for this one, and it showed. Season 1 is done. Season 2 is already being built. Go home. You earned it.

QUESTIONS WE GET INTO THIS EPISODE

00:58 What surprised Marc and Shantall most about AANA's Annual Congress in Boston?

07:34 Why is anesthesia culture actually shifting away from nurses eat their young?

08:19 What does a healthy professional culture look like in real life?

10:10 What would Marc tell an SRNA who feels like they're missing something everyone else gets?

12:33 What happened at the Latine CRNA Association's launch event?

14:59 What is The Break Room, and how do you get your questions answered?

Everything we make lives at clockoutandconnect.com, free CRNA tools, the newsletter, all of it

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"Tuition is 250, 300, 350, almost 400,000 dollars" at the pricier programs, our guest says, and that's before three years of no income on top of it. Add the two together and you can graduate CRNA school half a million dollars behind before your first paycheck clears. He built an entire platform, The Finance Focused CRNA (@the_finance_focused_crna on Instagram), around exactly that gap, and he does it under a pen name he explains himself on mic, a nod to Mark Twain: Henry stands for High Earner, Not Rich Yet, Sink stands for Single Income, No Kids, his own joke about a salary that still doesn't feel like wealth.

We get into the one thing he says almost nobody does before school starts (run an actual budget), the real math behind a W2 offer versus a 1099 one, why he says not every CRNA needs an S-corp, and the income-protection insurance most CRNAs have never priced out. Then it turns personal. His mother is 68 and still works part-time in labor and delivery, and she still gets told at work that it "must be so nice" her kids are both CRNAs, like nobody worked for it.

If you are holding an acceptance letter right now, this is the one to listen to with a calculator open.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome, and meet "Henry Sink"

02:46 Why the pen name, HENRY and SINK explained

09:37 The real cost of CRNA school, tuition plus three years of no income

13:29 Run a budget before day one, the mistake almost everyone makes

18:56 What actually lands in your account: W2 vs. 1099, and the S-corp question

29:50 Long-term disability insurance, the risk nobody prices in

45:19 Family, and "must be so nice"

1:10:04 Would he do it again

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It's just anxiety. That is the sentence women kept hearing back, the ones on the Retrievals podcast whose spinal or epidural was not working during a C-section, told the problem was in their head. That is medical gaslighting in childbirth, and once you hear it named, you start hearing it everywhere women describe how their births actually went.

Part 1 laid out the data. Part 2 is the room itself. Dr. Neda Hashemi, MD, FACOG and Dr. Chloe Trowbridge, DNP, CNM walk us through what a good delivery room actually feels like, an OB and a nurse-midwife who built a collaborative model almost by accident, with a Pause for the Cause system so a nurse can flag a bad tracing without getting berated for it. Shantall opens up about her own breech birth and the C-section she still wonders about. Marc keeps asking the questions anesthesia never thinks to ask, because we are in the room for birth but we are not the ones catching the baby.

Then it gets practical. The three questions that tell you whether a provider is actually safe for you (primary C-section rate, going to 42 weeks, how they feel about a doula), why continuous labor support is linked to roughly 25% fewer C-sections, and why free birth is climbing when trust breaks down. Nobody in this room is fighting for turf. Two providers who could have spent their careers on opposite sides of an old rivalry chose the same room instead, and they will tell you plainly that the patient is the only ego that belongs in it.

QUESTIONS WE GET INTO THIS EPISODE

01:22 What made an OB and a midwife change the way they practice birth?

08:46 How common is mistreatment during childbirth?

11:26 What is a free birth, and why is it on the rise?

18:32 What does it really mean when a doctor says your pain is just anxiety?

20:53 What questions should you ask before choosing an OB or a midwife?

25:44 Do doulas actually improve birth outcomes?

New episodes every other Tuesday. Everything we make lives at clockoutandconnect.com, free CRNA tools, the newsletter, all of it.

Chapters :

00:00 Welcome back, the room and not just the data

00:45 Two systems, evidence-based vs old school

01:22 Dr. Hashemi, how a solo OB changed her whole model

04:53 Chloe Trowbridge, from L and D nurse to midwife

06:08 A transfer done right, and one done cruelly

08:46 How often mistreatment actually happens in birth

09:28 Ego, control, and the turf battle

11:26 Free birth on the rise

12:43 When the hospital system is the problem

14:12 Shantall's breech birth and C-section

16:14 Why OB nurses put new providers through the ringer

17:46 Fear on the floor and the right to speak up

18:32 It's just anxiety, naming medical gaslighting

19:28 Pause for the Cause, building a safer culture

20:29 Green flags, how to vet a provider

22:22 Why doctors do not love inductions either

23:05 The El Paso induction culture

25:44 Doulas, the cheapest thing that improves birth

27:10 Cost and timing, how to hire a doula

29:39 What makes this work worth it

32:24 Would they do it all over again?

36:42 Wrap, two halves meant to be heard together

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A Black woman in this country is more than three times more likely to die having a baby than a white woman, and the United States is the most dangerous wealthy country to have one in. So we opened with the question we actually wanted answered. When a woman walks into a hospital already not trusting the system, is she wrong? Dr. Neda Hashemi, an OB/GYN in practice for more than two decades, and Chloe Trowbridge, the nurse-midwife who helped deliver Marc's first baby, both said no. Then they told us why.

Neda runs a hospital that refuses to let medical gaslighting in childbirth slide. Every provider's first-time C-section rate goes up on the wall in a bar graph the staff call the hall of shame, and a committee reviews every first C-section before it happens. Chloe moved to El Paso and watched women get told at 30 weeks that their pelvis was too small and their baby too big. Marc's own friend heard the same line, switched providers the week of her birth, and delivered vaginally. We get into where the distrust really starts, from Tuskegee to a TikTok feed, and Neda's rule that a birth is somebody's wedding day and you do not get to ruin it.

More than 80% of pregnancy-related deaths in this country are preventable, and most of what makes birth safer is not a machine, it is a patient who gets believed. Part 1 is the data and the receipts. Part 2, The Room, is where it turns personal. Save this one and come back for the second half.

QUESTIONS WE GET INTO THIS EPISODE

00:00 Why is the US the most dangerous wealthy country to have a baby?

10:24 What is the difference between a nurse-midwife, a doula, and an OB?

20:12 Where does distrust in maternity care actually come from?

27:11 Can a hospital force a C-section, and what happens to bodily autonomy in labor?

38:29 How do you rebuild trust between a patient and a provider in birth?

47:31 Does continuous fetal monitoring in low-risk labor actually improve outcomes?

New episodes every other Tuesday. Everything we make lives at clockoutandconnect.com, free CRNA tools, the newsletter, all of it.

Chapters:

00:00 The numbers nobody wants to sit with

04:17 The hall of shame: every provider's C-section rate on the wall

07:49 Welcome, and meet Dr. Hashemi and Chloe Trowbridge

10:24 Midwife, doula, OB: who actually does what

11:43 El Paso and the 5 p.m. C-section culture

20:12 Where the distrust starts, from Tuskegee to TikTok

27:11 The court-ordered C-section and bodily autonomy

38:29 Shared decision-making and the wedding-day rule

39:34 How to actually vet your provider

47:31 Continuous vs intermittent monitoring, and eating in labor

52:35 Where we cut to Part 2

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Two CRNA couples, both spouses on mic for the first time, comparing what school and money actually did to their marriages. That's this one.

Everybody warned us the same way, "CRNA school's gonna be hard, the divorce rate is through the roof." So Marc and Shantall brought Becky and Adam on to say the quiet part out loud, and answer the question a lot of you are asking: how do you make a CRNA marriage work?

We get into the real stuff. The month you're praying your card doesn't decline at the register. The two completely different money stories, credit cards and loans for one couple, the Army route for the other. The perfectionism spiral where you're sure you'll fail a test you already know cold. The question a burned-out nurse friend DM'd us, how do you even do CRNA school with kids. And the higher earner conversation, because in one of these marriages the wife out-earns the husband and nobody's mad about it.

What actually held it together: over-communicating, asking for help early, and why working for yourself buys a family room to breathe.

If you're in CRNA school, thinking about applying, or married to someone who is, this one's for you and the person who's been through it with you.

QUESTIONS WE GET INTO THIS EPISODE

06:08 How do you make a CRNA marriage work when both careers are demanding?

21:44 Can you get through CRNA school with kids, or is it better to wait?

27:59 How do you handle money in CRNA school?

33:02 What does CRNA school actually do to a marriage, and what cracks first?

49:46 Who becomes the default parent, and how do you split it fairly?

1:03:52 What actually holds a relationship together through it all?

New episodes every other Tuesday. Everything we make lives at clockoutandconnect.com, free CRNA tools, the newsletter, all of it.

Chapters :

00:00 Meet the spouses (Becky and Adam)

01:47 Did you know the CRNA life would follow you home?

05:18 How do you do CRNA school with kids?

06:08 Why your spouse needs something of their own

08:00 Long distance, deployment, and the daily text

13:10 Tunnel vision versus acknowledge my reality too

18:50 The CRNA school superpower: you think you'll die, and you don't

27:59 Money in CRNA school: credit cards, loans, and the Army route

34:36 What you'd never do again, and what made you stronger

41:55 The perfectionism spiral (and the 80 you're sure you'll miss)

49:46 The default parent: equal versus fair

1:03:52 What actually works now

1:07:32 From W-2 to 1099: more flexibility, more breathing room

1:09:19 Would you do it again?

1:15:01 The higher earning wife and made-up gender roles

1:20:25 You're not alone

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Everybody loves the after photo. CRNA, six figures, living happily ever after. Almost nobody talks about what it actually took to get there.

Chris O'Connor was a teen mom who had her son in high school, then a single mom of two who put herself through CRNA school on maxed-out loans, food stamps, and daycare assistance. She technically seeded out. Her GPA slipped below the line, the school missed it, financial aid caught it, and she spent a whole semester one test away from being sent home. Her last exam in the program, she needed a 76. She got a 76.

In this one, Chris tells the version of the story nobody puts on the highlight reel: raising two kids while studying, sending her son to live with his dad for a stretch because she had to choose herself, and the mindset that got her through, just make the next test, just make the next day. She also gets into life on the other side, the first paycheck that made her cry, going 1099 and locums, and why she'll tell any single parent staring at an acceptance letter the same thing, if I can do it, anybody can do it.

Shantall works with Chris and has heard this story before, Marc keeps it honest, and Chris says the quiet part out loud. If you've ever looked at that mountain and thought there's no way, this is the episode that talks you back into the chair.

This is our perspective as CRNAs, not medical or financial advice.

Everything we make lives at clockoutandconnect.com. Free CRNA tools, the newsletter, all of it.

SEO tags

CRNA, nurse anesthesiologist, CRNA school, single mom nursing school, nurse anesthesia school, how to become a CRNA, perseverance, Clock Out and Connect

Chapters

  0:00 Icebreaker: the funniest thing a patient ever said going under

  7:23 Why she became a nurse, then a CRNA she never planned on

  10:15 She got in, now how does she pay for it?

  11:18 Maxed-out loans, food stamps, and quitting her job for school

  13:17 What a day-to-day week looked like with two kids

  14:51 Her biggest fear: flunking out

  15:14 The GPA slip the school missed and financial aid caught

  17:10 The last test she needed a 76 on

  19:02 Not a 4.0 doesn't mean you're not smart

  20:58 What she had to let go of, and why "no" is just an excuse

  23:03 What her kids say about it now that they're grown

  26:13 How she dug out: a study group and the one A she needed

  28:13 Why we made this episode 

  29:27 What she'd tell the single mom who thinks it's impossible

  30:16 Choosing herself, and sending her son to live with his dad

  31:54 Food stamps to a real paycheck: the transition

  33:38 The first thing she bought for herself in three years

  35:19 Every practice model she's worked, and her favorite

  38:12 When a facility cuts corners and it's time to walk

  40:50 The real story on going locums

  43:00 Marc's Minnesota winter and the snowblower that saved him

  52:26 The business of anesthesia nobody teaches in school

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Naseema McElroy looked at almost a million dollars of debt on a nurse's salary and, in her words, instead of crying about it, she did something about it. A few years later she was debt-free, and she says she did it without winning the lottery, marrying rich, or a single Shark Tank deal. She came on to break the money myth, the idea that you have to out-earn your problems, or stack another degree on your degree, to build real wealth.

She breaks down where nearly a million dollars actually came from, two master's degrees, a California house, a divorce, a surprise IRS bill, and how she went from zero in savings to four thousand dollars a month toward debt without picking up a single extra shift. We get into the zero-based budget she calls being CEO of her money, the debt snowball that got addictive, and the move she names as her own biggest money mistake, not investing while she paid the debt down. She also talks about raising her daughters to be owners instead of consumers, one of whom now teaches other kids about money.

Then Naseema has to jet, and we stay on the mic and put our own numbers on the table, Marc's student loans and Shantall's, because if we are going to ask a guest to be this open about money, we owe you the same. This one is about how nurses build wealth on a nurse's income, and the myth was never the math.

QUESTIONS WE GET INTO THIS EPISODE

09:26 Do you really need another degree to get paid more as a nurse?

23:48 How do you pay off almost a million dollars of debt on a nurse's salary?

25:09 What is a zero-based budget, and how do you use it to get out of debt?

28:39 Should you keep investing while you are paying off debt?

33:21 Why is there a racial wealth gap, and how can nurses close it?

37:29 How do you teach your kids about money and investing?

New episodes every other Tuesday. Everything we make lives at clockoutandconnect.com, free CRNA tools, the newsletter, all of it.

Chapters :

00:00 Cold open: the thing you bought to feel like an adult

06:04 Meet Naseema McElroy, RN, FNP

09:26 High earner, not rich: do you need another degree?

12:35 Why she started Financially Intentional

16:43 Normalizing money talk at work

20:15 The benefits nurses have but never use

23:48 Where nearly a million dollars of debt comes from

25:09 CEO of my money: the zero-based budget

26:55 The debt snowball that got addictive

28:39 Her biggest money mistake: not investing while paying off debt

30:03 FIRE, maxing accounts, and calling Vanguard at 5 a.m.

33:21 The wealth gap and reversing it

37:29 Raising owners, not consumers

41:05 FinTok and what social media gets right

45:49 The write-off myth

1:16:42 Off the Record: Marc and Shantall on their own student loans

✨ Connect with us:

📧 Email: [email protected]
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Everybody sees the anesthesia provider in the chair, cracking jokes, looking calm. What they do not see is the bag on your shoulders. Bilal Mohammad, CRNA, the Miami provider some of you know on Instagram and TikTok as thatcrnawholifts, came on to talk about the part of this job that never shows up on the chart. He tells us about an overnight trauma shift, a gunshot wound patient who was talking before induction and did not make it, and ten minutes later a STAT C-section rolling in. A whole circle of life inside an hour. That is the occupational hazard we mean, not the OSHA kind, the emotional kind, the thing you carry out of a hard case and have to reset from before the next one.

Then Bilal opens up about how you survive a career that asks everything of you. He leads with his faith as a practicing Muslim, prayer breaks and Friday prayer, even written into his contract, and he calls faith and fitness his way of leveling out. No gym session is a bad gym session. We talk about standing for hours with no break, no bathroom, no food, and why he refuses to take a bad day personally. We go a few rounds on direct laryngoscopy versus the glidescope, and we get honest about what social media misinformation is doing to patient trust, including that viral epidural clickbait.

Then we drop the performance for the off the record round, the most embarrassing things that have ever happened to us in the OR, and Bilal closes with a verse he lives by, with hardship comes ease. Come hang out with us.

QUESTIONS WE GET INTO THIS EPISODE

07:36 Do you still need to know direct laryngoscopy if you use the glidescope every day?

15:21 How do you lead with your faith at work as a CRNA?

17:31 What does the emotional toll of being a CRNA actually feel like after a hard case?

22:01 What do anesthesia providers carry silently that most people never see?

28:01 Is healthcare social media giving patients more information and less trust?

35:40 Can weightlifting really be self-care for a burned out healthcare worker?

New episodes every other Tuesday. Everything we make lives at clockoutandconnect.com, free CRNA tools, the newsletter, all of it.

Chapters :

00:00 Cold open, the desflurane pop quiz

02:14 Welcome to Clock Out & Connect

03:35 Meet Bilal Mohammad, thatcrnawholifts

05:37 The DL vs glidescope debate

10:58 Explain your job in 30 seconds

12:09 What we leave at the door

14:56 Leading with faith at work

17:31 Occupational hazards, walking out of a hard case

22:01 What providers carry silently

25:52 Social media, more information, less trust

31:55 Supervision, safety or money

35:40 The body keeps score, faith and fitness

39:32 Standing for hours with no break

42:39 The first paycheck and the ROI

47:08 What the job gave back

50:21 Off the Record, OR stories we never tell

55:28 Where to find Bilal, and would he do it again

✨ Connect with us:

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Dr. Dani Williams trained and competed in physique shows straight through anesthesia school, clinicals and all, and came out the other side without burning to the ground. She is a CRNA who practices independently in Arizona, and in December 2025 she earned her IFBB Fit Model Pro card. If you want a real answer on CRNA burnout and work-life balance, she lived the extreme version.

So we asked how. Dani walks us through waking up at 3:45 in the morning and stacking coffee with pre-workout, over a thousand milligrams of caffeine a day to keep both plates spinning. She calls it running on borrowed energy, and it took her three years to wean all the way back down. We talk about the mom guilt and the double standard, why nobody blinks when you say you are headed to the gym but leaving for your family hits different, and what burnout actually looks like from inside the OR.

Underneath it is the reframe the episode is named for. Dani says the most selfless thing we can do is give ourselves the time to be selfish, so we can actually show up for the patient. If you are running on an empty cup and promising yourself you will rest when things slow down, start here.

QUESTIONS WE GET INTO THIS EPISODE

16:41 Can you be a CRNA and an IFBB pro competitor at the same time?

32:16 How do you compete in physique shows all the way through anesthesia school?

36:41 What is borrowed energy, and how much caffeine is too much for a provider?

49:30 Is there a gender double standard for self-care in healthcare?

1:04:53 What does CRNA burnout actually look like in the OR?

1:18:40 How does CRNA independent practice change by state (Arizona vs Florida)?

New episodes every other Tuesday. Everything we make lives at clockoutandconnect.com, free CRNA tools, the newsletter, all of it.

Chapters :

00:00 When is it okay to put yourself first?

16:41 Meet Dr. Dani Williams: independent CRNA, new IFBB Fit Model Pro

24:07 What an IFBB Pro actually is, and why Fit Model

32:16 Competing through anesthesia school

36:41 A day in the thick of it: 3:45 AM, borrowed energy

46:10 Three years out: weaning off the caffeine

49:30 The gender double standard: fitness vs family

57:39 What it cost at home

1:01:19 Single moms in CRNA school, judged harder

1:04:53 Burnout in the OR: the empty cup

1:09:01 Selfish is selfless: recharge so you can show up

1:18:40 Autonomy by state: Arizona vs Florida

1:25:20 Fulfillment as currency

1:34:00 System, self, or family: where burnout comes from

1:55:35 Off the Record

2:05:49 So, when is it okay to put yourself first?

✨ Connect with us:

📧 Email: [email protected]
🎥 YouTube: Clock Out and Connect
📸 Instagram: @clockoutandconnectpodcast
📘 Facebook: Clock Out and Connect Podcast

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Two marriages went into CRNA school, same pressure, completely different shape. Marc had been married to Becky nine months when he left, so she was right there in the apartment and still lonely, the two of them ships in the night while he studied upstairs. Shantall had been married to Adam more than ten years, and they spent most of school apart, her in San Antonio, him in Washington, feeling like she was in it alone. This is the episode about the people who stayed.

We say the parts most people keep quiet. Shantall tells the whole thing, almost failing out her first semester, the panic attacks, flying to her best friend's wedding with a textbook on the beach, and finally swallowing her pride to ask for help, then getting treated like the weakest link for it. We talk about the jealousy, the guilt over every friendship you cannot keep up with when you have thirty seconds a day, and the friends who just did not make it to the other side.

Then we land on where both marriages are now, and why neither one happened by accident. If you are the one holding it down while someone you love chases this, we see you.

QUESTIONS WE GET INTO THIS EPISODE

04:00 What does CRNA school actually cost a marriage?

12:00 Why is CRNA school so isolating for the spouse who stays home?

17:00 What is it like going through CRNA school separated from your spouse?

27:00 What do you do when you are almost failing out of CRNA school, and how do you ask for help?

41:00 Which friendships do not survive CRNA school?

48:00 Where are both marriages now, and why was none of it an accident?

New episodes every other Tuesday. Everything we make lives at clockoutandconnect.com, free CRNA tools, the newsletter, all of it.

Chapters :

00:00 Cold open

03:00 Welcome back, who paid for the yes

04:00 What we thought CRNA school would cost

07:00 Harder than we ever expected

12:00 When your spouse feels alone

17:00 Living separate lives

22:00 What it did to the marriage

27:00 Almost failing out and asking for help

36:00 How CRNA school changes you and every relationship

41:00 The friends who did not survive it

48:00 Where our marriages are now

57:00 Off the Record

✨ Connect with us:

📧 Email: [email protected]
🎥 YouTube: Clock Out and Connect
📸 Instagram: @clockoutandconnectpodcast
📘 Facebook: Clock Out and Connect Podcast

💬 Got a story, question, or an Off the Record submission? Send it our way.