Things Respiratory Therapists do that are useful

Of course you guys know that it's inevitable that in any job you will do senseless things. The main reason for this is to protect yourself from lawsuits, and because of politics, and because sometimes you just have to do something so people think you are doing something. Oh, and sometimes you just create jobs because you can.

So, based on that, I thought I would make a list of all the things we RTs do that are useful:

1. Smoking cessation
2. Asthma/ COPD education
3. Rapid response teams
4. Protocols
5. Bronchodilators for bronchospasm
6. ABGs on patients in respiratory distress
7. Monitoring pulse oximeters instead of drawing ABGs to monitor oxygen status
8. Monitoring end tidal CO2 instead of drawing serial ABGs to determine CO2
9. Keystone Meetings to improve patient care and reduce costs
10. Patient assessments
11. Advice to nurses and doctors