Respiratory Therapist
Respiratory Therapy
No human can live without oxygen entering through the lungs, and it is up to a respiratory therapist to ensure that men, women, and children with lung disorders or problems receive the oxygen they need to survive. A respiratory therapist can work in a neonatal setting, a nursing home setting, a hospital setting, as a home health worker, or even hired in to a private home on a permanent or semi-permanent basis. These valuable workers carry licensing granting them permission to work as a respiratory therapist. They ensure ventilators are working properly, that tracheal tubes are not clogged up, that medications are doing their job, or even resuscitate patients who have crashed and require CPR.
Most men and women who are a respiratory therapist work a typical twelve-hour shift three or four days per week. Respiratory therapy hospital shifts generally run from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. or 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. The long hours require you to remain focus and learn to adapt your schedule, but the lack of qualified therapists leave many hospitals or health care settings struggling to ensure patients have constant access to respiratory therapy. A respiratory therapist starts a day by checking all of the patients, listening to heart and lung sounds through a stethoscope, ensuring the respiratory equipment is functioning properly, and that medications are helping to keep patients’ airways open. A respiratory therapist will meet with doctors and nurses to make sure there are no questions in regards to treatments.
Every two hours, a respiratory therapist must repeat the patient rounds to ensure nothing has changed. If an emergency arises, the respiratory therapist will handle CPR and make changes to the patient’s treatment plan. At the end of the shift, the therapist must fill in the incoming respiratory therapist with the events of the day, the current patients, and any changes that have been made to a patients’ care.
