Respiratory therapists are eubiquitous

Respiratory therapists are ubiquitous; seeming to be everywhere at the same time.  This is the nature of our game.  Wherever we are needed, that's where we appear.

Where might you find your respiratory therapist? The following is a typical day at a hospital near you.  You will find your RT:

1. Walking into the front doors with a cup of coffee in one hand and a lunchbox in the next
2. Punching in
3. Greeting his coworkers with "I'm doing great today!  How are you?"
4. Placing his keys in his locker, and lunch in the refrigerator
5. Taking report in the RT cave
6. Answering the phone at the secretary's desk
7. Reading yesterday's newspaper in the RT charting room
8. Discussing a new idea for a protocol in his boss's office
9. Bantering with a visitor in the waiting room
10. Guiding a lost visitor to the room his mother is in
11. Guiding a second patient to the front back lobby
12. Grimacing as his beeper goes off for the first time for the day
13. Running through the hallway on the way to the emergency department
14. Bagging a patient in the Emergency room, and then setting up a ventilator
15. Washing his hands behind the ER nursing station
16. Running through the hallway on the way to critical care
17. Assisting with an intubation in the critical care, and then setting up another ventilator
18. Walking through the hallway on the way back to the RT Cave
19. Grabbing a clipboard in the RT Cave
20. Washing his hands in the bathroom near the cave
21. Walking through the hallway on the way to do breathing treatments
22. Walking into a room, saying, "Well, are you ready for your med-day peacepipe?"
23. Giving an albuterol breathing treatment in a patient room, and bantering just as well
24. Giving an epinephrine treatment in recovery
25. Attending a code in the front lobby
26. Performing EKG or PFT on an outpatient
27. Assisting a physician do a stress test
28. Washing his hands once again
29. Grabbing his lunch box from the RT Cave
30. Gobbling his lunch in the cafeteria
31. Grimacing as his lunch is interrupted by his beeper going off
32. Trudging down the hall on the way back down to ER
33. Rushing room to room in ER doing several EKGs
34. Washing his hands by the ER nurses station
35. Pikcing up some medicine in pharmacy
36. Rushing back down to the emergency room
37. Trudging room to room in the ER doing breathing treatments and more EKGs
38. Setting up a holter monitor in the emergency room
39. Rushing up the stairs
40. Grabbing incentive spirometers from one of many satellite stock rooms
41. Walking room to room teaching patients how to do incentive spirometry
42. Instructing a middle aged woman on methods for quitting smoking
43. Grumbling as his beeper goes off, once again
44. Taking an patient on a ventilator to CT
45. Setting up on oxyhood in OB
46. Running a blood gas in the laboratory
47. Watching monitors in the sleep study lab
48. Checking on a BiPAP set up in critical care
49. Joking with a critical care nurse
50. Giving a breathing treatment and watching the Detroit Tigers with a COPD patient
51. Watching telemetry while the monitor tech takes a break
52. Eating lunch in the hospital cafeteria.  Whew!  A much needed break. 
53. Watching a C-section in surgery
54. Watching Matlock while giving a breathing treatment to an elderly lady
55. High fiving a happy, young child with down syndrome
56. Cheering up a child with stickers after the lab tech drew his blood
57. Rushing past the unit secretary on his way to the stairway
58. Trudging through the surgical doors, and down a long hallway
59. Searching for an EKG machine that was not put away
60. Smiling when he discovers the EKG machine is right where he left it
61. Doing a STAT EKG on a pre-operative patient
62. Joking around with the nurses in recovery
63. Talking with a volunteer on the way up the stairs
64. Talking in the break room with a nurse
65. Meeting in the doctor's lounge with a hospitalist
66. Attending doctor's rounds in the critical care
67. Searching for an old EKG in medical records
68. Watching a football game in the break room, at least until his beeper goes off
69. Grabbing stock from the basement stockroom
70. Grabbing a new oxygen tank on the way through the tank room
71. Enjoying the fresh outdoor breeze while taking a break on the loading dock
72. Surfing the Internet in the Computer room
73. Attending a meeting in the classrooms
74. Talking with the CEO in the administration building
75. Assisting a nurse boost up a patient in bed
76. Attending a Keystone meeting in the boardroom
77. Extubating a patient in the critical care
78. Watching telemetry as a DNR patient's heart decides to go flat line
79. Taking a dead body to the morgue
80. Walking some epaper work to a doctor's office
81. Walking through OB on the way back to the RT Cave
82. Stopping on a dime as his beeper goes off
83. Rushing to check on a ventilator that "won't stop beeping."
84. Suctioning a ventilator patient in the critical care
85. Washing his hands in the patient's bathroom
86. Walking through the hallway
87. Eating dinner in the break room
88. Discussing the end of the day plan with his coworker
89. Rushing room to room doing breathing treatments
90. Standing in the doorway of a patient room saying, "Well, if I see you again, I hope it's at Walmart or a Bar or sometihng."  
91. Touching a little old lady on the shoulder, and noting how she smiles
92. Standing in the doorway of the same room, listening to one old lady say to the next, "What a fine young man he is."
93. Returning to the RT cave
94. Leaning back on his chair an dputting his feet up on the desk
95. Placing the keyboard on his lap and charting his daily work
96. Giving report to his replacement RT
97. Bantering with his fellow RTs in the RT Cave
98. Standing by the time-clock watching the last minutes tick away
99. Punching out
100. Saying "have a wonderful night" to the folks working at the front desk
101. Walking to his car after a long day

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