A respiratory therapist provides care to help people whenever there is a breathing issue.

We take care of asthmatic patients admitted to the ER. We follow them through to discharge and care for their lungs.

We take care of therapy to help them breathe better and help improve the condition through therapy.

R.T.’s give breathing treatments to people with asthma and other respiratory conditions. We work in ICU to manage the ventilators that keep the critically ill alive. We work in the ER with trauma patients.

If a trauma patient is not breathing we are right there to open the airway.

We help in the newborn and pediatric units helping kids with conditions ranging from premature birth to cystic fibrosis. Sometimes we help the anesthesiologist monitor a patients’ breathing during surgery. We help with asthma education and pulmonary function tests.

I start out getting reports from the previous shifts and taking care of the machines here. Anyone on life support, we do a routine assessment of the machine to make sure it’s running correctly.

Next I go to patients and give therapy for asthma, chronic lung disease or for a child with the croup. I might even get called by the ER to help with a trauma situation.

We now see many factories asking us to assess their needs. We don’t want to see the people that work in these factories turn into people with lung problems because of the stuff in the air. We may access these people for their needs and follow up by making sure they are using a mask correctly.

It’s challenging because you are often working in ICU with death and dying and it’s a real challenge when your critical patients are young kids.

With a critical patient there is so much going on. We interact with the doctors a lot. We are constantly accessing the patient and working with the nurses, constantly watching the airway.

Seeing somebody get better and go home — especially kids. It’s rewarding to see kids and babies improve and go home. It’s very hard and frustrating when you have a baby die — very hard.\