subject: Respiratory Therapist School: What To Expect From A Respiratory Therapist Career [print this page] A respiratory therapist school teaches respiratory therapy, a health care specialty that focuses on prevention, diagnosis, treatment, management and rehabilitation of patients with breathing or other cardiopulmonary disorders. A respiratory therapist school will teach respiratory therapists to provide treatment ranging from giving emergency relief to patients with asthma to long-term care for chronic conditions such as emphysema.
Although hospitals will continue to employ the vast majority of respiratory therapist school graduates, a growing number can expect to work outside of hospitals in home health care services, offices of physicians or other health practitioners or consumer goods rental firms. Home health care in particular is a bright spot on the horizon due to technological advances that permit complex respiratory therapy care to be administered in the home.
Respiratory therapist school graduates held about 105,980 jobs in 2008. About 81 percent of all respiratory therapists worked in respiratory care, anesthesiology or pulmonary medicine departments of hospitals. Other respiratory therapist school graduates worked in physicians' or other health care practitioners' offices and in nursing care facilities or for consumer goods rental firms that supply respiratory equipment for home use.
When you become a respiratory therapy student at a respiratory therapist school, you'll develop professional skills in advanced respiratory care techniques, including neonatal and adult special care procedures, general and advanced pharmacology, cardiopulmonary disease, patient assessment and therapeutics.
Older Americans suffer most from respiratory ailments and cardiopulmonary diseases such as pneumonia, chronic bronchitis, emphysema and heart disease. As their numbers increase, so too does the need for respiratory therapist school graduates will increase as well. In addition, advances in treating victims of heart attacks, accident victims and premature infants (many of whom are dependent on a ventilator during part of their treatment) will increase the demand for the services of respiratory therapist school graduates.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of respiratory therapist school graduates is expected to increase 21 percent, much faster than the average for all occupations through the year 2018. Professionals in this growing career field are in demand.
On a daily basis, respiratory therapists perform tasks such as:
- Treating a variety of patients including infants and the elderly;
- Consulting with other healthcare staff to develop and modify patient care plans;
- Providing complex theory that requires a great deal of independent judgment for example caring for a patient on life support in a hospital's intensive care unit;
- Conducting diagnostic tests specifically those that measure lung capacity and acidity as well as alkalinity of the blood;
- Treating patients by using oxygen and oxygen mixtures, aerosol medications and chest physiotherapy;
- Connecting patients who are struggling to breath on ventilators that deliver pressurized oxygen to the patients lungs;
- Performing regular checks on equipment and patients; and
- Supervising respiratory therapy technicians.
Respiratory therapy school graduates who become respiratory therapists have advancement options as well. As a respiratory therapist in a clinical environment gains experience they can move from providing general care to providing care for critically ill patients. Those with advanced degrees from a respiratory therapy school may become supervisors. Those in health care agencies can become branch mangers and some respiratory therapist school graduates will eventually teach.
