Respiratory Therapists? Essential?

[premedshow]

I am a sophomore in college and over this past summer, I was shadowing a few physicians at a hospital in a rural area (cases in rural areas are quite interesting). Anyway, the doctors were always too busy to get to know me so that left my down-time at the hospital confined to socializing with the staff. There was this one guy over there who is a respiratory therapist and he had to be the cockiest dude I have ever met in my whole life. He walked around like he owned the place. And he talked to me for no reason. But when he did, he would say, "It ain't easy being a respiratory therapist. All those lives that I have to save day by day."

Throughout the whole summer, he would just come up to me and tell me start blabbing his mouth off about the trials of being a respiratory therapist. And each time he would do this, he would make it clear that he thought that he had the most essential role in saving lives.

I think I'm going to be getting replies telling me I'm an arrogant idiot for raising my eyebrows at this guy, but I want to know: How essential are RTs to the actual well-being of a patient? Do they really "save lives?" Do they really work at that critical juncture where a patient is almost at the verge of life? And what the heck do they do anyway?

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[mvenus929]

Respiratory therapists maintain trachs, give breathing treatments, etc. Other personnel can put in and maintain trachs, so respiratory therapists aren't essential in that regard, but they do serve to take some of the burden off other members of the healthcare team.

What I do (drawing blood) can save lives. I can also kill patients in a roundabout way. And considering the reliance on labwork today, I'm pretty important. If my job doesn't done on time, then a lot of other things can get backed up very quickly. That said, I don't think I'm all that. I'm important, but not as important as other members of the healthcare team. Nurses and lab techs can draw blood, so I"m just there to take the burden off them, so they can focus on the more important aspects of their jobs. That's how a respiratory therapist is as well.

 

[premedshow]

Okay, so the work that they do isn't exclusive to their career as respiratory therapists. If they weren't around, I am guessing a doctor or a nurse could maintain trachs and give breathing treatments if they really had to. Is this right?

 

[schrizto]

When I shadowed in the hospital I met a respiratory therapist who was seriously perverted. All the other staff always acted like he was joking but I got the feeling he wasn't. Like he'd do weird things like pinch my cheeks and say "You should smile more, hunneh" and other questionable behavior.

 

[Disinence2]

At the hospital I'm currently rotating at Resp. Therapists do all ABGs. A few nights ago a resident did one because they were taking to long and the nurses response was "I didn't know doctors could do ABGs". They are usually one of the first ones to a code and are great at changing vent settings. At another hospital on the other side of town they give mainly breathing treatments. They are definitely a vital part of the health care team, but they can't do anything that a competent physician isn't capable of.

 

[Paseo Del Norte]

Okay, so the work that they do isn't exclusive to their career as respiratory therapists. If they weren't around, I am guessing a doctor or a nurse could maintain trachs and give breathing treatments if they really had to. Is this right?

Your view if respiratory therapy is incomplete. Respiratory therapy is much more involved than maintaining trachs and giving breathing treatments.

Regrading the question, yes it is possible for other providers to take on the RT function, many other countries do not have respiratory therapy providers. However, would demolishing the field of respiratory therapy be beneficial to the health care environment? Think of a CRT or RRT as a specialist who brings a specific skill set to the health care team. This is in fact true of most allied health providers. (Respiratory therapy, Radiologic technologist, Perfusionist, etc.)

While a doctor or nurse could sit for 20 minutes and give a breathing treatment, is this a very efficient way to use these providers? In addition, nurses in the United States receive a highly general education. That is, nurses do not obtain specialized knowledge until after they complete their initial education. Therefore, it is nice to have a provider who graduates with specialized knowledge of cardiopulmonary medicine assessing patient with cardiac & respiratory disorders and providing the interventions. Trust me, if you go to medical school, a good respiratory therapist can be quite helpful. Especially if you are looking at managing a complicated patient who requires complex ventilatory strategies such as oscillatory ventilation, pressure limited ventilation, inverted I:E ratios, APRV and others.

In addition respiratory therapists receive education in the areas of transport, gas laws and physics, sleep medicine, diagnostics, and hyperbaric medicine. Therefore it is not uncommon to see respiratory therapists working in sleep labs and cardio/pulmonary diagnostic centers.

I am sorry you ran int a RT acting like an ass; however, do not presume to base your opinion of an entire profession base on this limited experience. That is rather myopic and I deal with such bias on a daily basis. This is no different from nurses who view doctors as the enemy based on a couple of bad anecdotal experiences.

I suppose the best way to look at this question without bias is to look through the evidence. I am not aware of any studies with RT care versus non RT care with outcome based criteria. Perhaps they exist, I am not sure.

 

[njbmd]

RRT here before I attended graduate school/medical school: I can tell you that if a hospital thought that they could "get by" with out respiratory therapy, there would be no jobs out there. I never had a problem finding a job when I was in RT and the pay was great.

I used my RRT to work my way through undergrad. Between my scholarships and my nightshift RRT work, I had no undergraduate (or graduate) educational loans. I ended up borrowing about $40K for medical school and now that I am an attending, life is very good.

 

[mvenus929]

Okay, so the work that they do isn't exclusive to their career as respiratory therapists. If they weren't around, I am guessing a doctor or a nurse could maintain trachs and give breathing treatments if they really had to. Is this right?

An above poster mentioned they do ABGs as well, which they do at my hospital. However, one of my coworkers came from a hospital in Kansas where the phlebotomists did all the ABGs, and were even training the RTs to do it. They, among others, respond in respiratory distress, and have a more specialized knowledge than doctors and nurses. Doctors and nurses can do the job of RTs, but perhaps not as efficiently or well.

In a large hospital, they are necessary, simply because other care providers can't take the time to do what they do. In small clinics/hospitals, if there is an RT and he/she is busy, someone else can pick up the slack just fine.

Basically, he shouldn't be arrogant about his position (as he's certainly not at the top of the food chain), but he's just as important as many other allied health providers in the hospital setting.

 

[Saken]

Your view if respiratory therapy is incomplete. Respiratory therapy is much more involved than maintaining trachs and giving breathing treatments.

Regrading the question, yes it is possible for other providers to take on the RT function, many other countries do not have respiratory therapy providers. However, would demolishing the field of respiratory therapy be beneficial to the health care environment? Think of a CRT or RRT as a specialist who brings a specific skill set to the health care team. This is in fact true of most allied health providers. (Respiratory therapy, Radiologic technologist, Perfusionist, etc.)

While a doctor or nurse could sit for 20 minutes and give a breathing treatment, is this a very efficient way to use these providers? In addition, nurses in the United States receive a highly general education. That is, nurses do not obtain specialized knowledge until after they complete their initial education. Therefore, it is nice to have a provider who graduates with specialized knowledge of cardiopulmonary medicine assessing patient with cardiac & respiratory disorders and providing the interventions. Trust me, if you go to medical school, a good respiratory therapist can be quite helpful. Especially if you are looking at managing a complicated patient who requires complex ventilatory strategies such as oscillatory ventilation, pressure limited ventilation, inverted I:E ratios, APRV and others.

In addition respiratory therapists receive education in the areas of transport, gas laws and physics, sleep medicine, diagnostics, and hyperbaric medicine. Therefore it is not uncommon to see respiratory therapists working in sleep labs and cardio/pulmonary diagnostic centers.

I am sorry you ran int a RT acting like an ass; however, do not presume to base your opinion of an entire profession base on this limited experience. That is rather myopic and I deal with such bias on a daily basis. This is no different from nurses who view doctors as the enemy based on a couple of bad anecdotal experiences.

I suppose the best way to look at this question without bias is to look through the evidence. I am not aware of any studies with RT care versus non RT care with outcome based criteria. Perhaps they exist, I am not sure.

Pretty much this..

You're gonna see arrogant and whatnot people in every profession... don't let your views of a single therapist give you a negative bias towards an entire profession

With that said, the abilities and such of individual therapists vary greatly. Some therapists out there are just basically robots who do only what they're told to do and apply no critical thinking skills at all. These are the therapists that hospitals can most likely easily do without.

Conversely, there are therapists who actively participate in patient care and can be a valuable resource to the health care team for their specialized knowledge base and unique perspective on the patients status.

Anyway it depends per hospital on what RTs can do. The license allows RTs to do a large amount of things but it depends on the hospitals what they want to allow RTs to do.

In almost every hospital RTs do nebulizer treatments, manage vents, ABG drawing, oxygen therapy and airway clearance (including all the modalities and procedures)

Other things that vary between locations include intubating, arterial line placement, IV line placement, assess and treat procedures, CPR (compressions + bagging), among other things...

 

[chman]

So if one doctor is cocky, are all doctors? If one nurse is lazy, are all nurses? What about one drunk Irish guy, that means they are all drunks right?

I think you can probably see this logic is kind of dangerous. I like what one of the other posters said; if they are not needed they would not have jobs. Hospitals will save money wherever they can.

 

[bunnity]

At the hospital where I worked the RTs were usually the first to a code. They could and would intubate if necessary, they set up and ran the vents, and they drew ABGs (and possibly did the lab work? I forget). In other words our codes would have been chaotic without them.

They also did routine vent adjustments, listened to breath sounds for people on longer term ventilation, did respiratory assessments, were there for extubations, did breathing treatments...

Now of course another person could have done all these things, but they didn't. Let's face it, most jobs that most people do could be done by someone else. That doesn't mean they are unimportant or unessential. I did EKGs and while yes, a monkey could do EKGs in most cases, it happened to be me and not the monkey getting paged overhead to codes, and so I was important because I was the one doing the job. It doesn't matter who else could have been doing my job or who went to school for what - it matters that everyone does their job to the best of their ability and is professional to each other. Anything beyond that is just people being egotistical.

The other thing to consider is that when you do one thing over and over you get really good at it. So even though we could have all been trained to do each other's jobs, the phlebotomists were great at drawing blood on little skinny dehydrated people and the CNA's got fast at taking vitals and the cardiac techs could get a nice skinny level EKG on a wiggly patient. Sometimes the ER CNAs would do their own EKGs and some of them would just come out terribly, because it was one of many things they were doing. So specialization does have a function besides taking the burden off of the more lofty and educated

 

[Baller MD]

When I shadowed in the hospital I met a respiratory therapist who was seriously perverted. All the other staff always acted like he was joking but I got the feeling he wasn't. Like he'd do weird things like pinch my cheeks and say "You should smile more, hunneh" and other questionable behavior.

LOL, WTF. Report him.

 

[Ekk232]

Respiratory therapists maintain trachs, give breathing treatments, etc. Other personnel can put in and maintain trachs, so respiratory therapists aren't essential in that regard, but they do serve to take some of the burden off other members of the healthcare team.

What I do (drawing blood) can save lives. I can also kill patients in a roundabout way. And considering the reliance on labwork today, I'm pretty important. If my job doesn't done on time, then a lot of other things can get backed up very quickly. That said, I don't think I'm all that. I'm important, but not as important as other members of the healthcare team. Nurses and lab techs can draw blood, so I"m just there to take the burden off them, so they can focus on the more important aspects of their jobs. That's how a respiratory therapist is as well.

Ok, I think this is probably one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. You're actually going to argue that a PHLEBOTIMIST is more important to the wellbeing of an acutely injured patient than a Respiratory Therapist?!
I am an RRT in a large metropolitan hospital. In the area I work, RRT's are responsible for the monitoring, maintaining, and weaning of patients from ventilators. In addition, we make diagnostic decisions regarding our patients and can make any vent changes as necessary. We decide when it's time to intubate, we decide when it's time to extubate. When $#!T starts to hit the fan, "RESPIRATORY STAT" is what is called over the hospital wide PA system. MD's, RN's, medical students, they all have the common sense not to touch our ventilators or treat us with any disrespect. When there is confusion regarding a patient's status and what should be done (from a pulmonary stand point) RRT's are the ones who the physician consults.
For most things, we do not need orders, we have our own protocols. Many area hospitals have RRT's intubating, inserting A-lines, assisting in the OR, ABG drawing and interpretation is standard for the state.
RRT's go to school for 2-5 years, just like nurses. Personally, I went to school for 5 years and earned my BS in Respiratory Care. RRT's are considered to be one of the most valuable assets in my hospital and someone would be crazy to question our importance.
The bottom line is, Respiratory Therapists DO save lives....

 

[chman]

Ok, I think this is probably one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. You're actually going to argue that a PHLEBOTIMIST is more important to the wellbeing of an acutely injured patient than a Respiratory Therapist?!
I am an RRT in a large metropolitan hospital. In the area I work, RRT's are responsible for the monitoring, maintaining, and weaning of patients from ventilators. In addition, we make diagnostic decisions regarding our patients and can make any vent changes as necessary. We decide when it's time to intubate, we decide when it's time to extubate. When $#!T starts to hit the fan, "RESPIRATORY STAT" is what is called over the hospital wide PA system. MD's, RN's, medical students, they all have the common sense not to touch our ventilators or treat us with any disrespect. When there is confusion regarding a patient's status and what should be done (from a pulmonary stand point) RRT's are the ones who the physician consults.
For most things, we do not need orders, we have our own protocols. Many area hospitals have RRT's intubating, inserting A-lines, assisting in the OR, ABG drawing and interpretation is standard for the state.
RRT's go to school for 2-5 years, just like nurses. Personally, I went to school for 5 years and earned my BS in Respiratory Care. RRT's are considered to be one of the most valuable assets in my hospital and someone would be crazy to question our importance.
The bottom line is, Respiratory Therapists DO save lives....

I don't think that is what that person was saying at all, but maybe I read it wrong.

 

[schrizto]

uh, yeah I don't see what was said that was offensive enough to merit that reply.