The Stages of Respiratory Therapy Apathy

Stage 1: Innocence

You don’t know any better, so everything feels important.
A call comes from the ER and you drop whatever you’re doing — including your food — and rush down. STAT means stat. You walk fast. Sometimes you run. You feel needed.

---

Stage 2: Questioning

You start to notice things.
Why was this called stat? The patient looks fine. Why am I giving a breathing treatment to someone with a head cold? Is this pneumonia, or is she just wet?

You still do the work, but the questions start piling up.

---

Stage 3: Total Realization

At some point it hits you: a lot of what we do doesn’t change outcomes. Sometimes it just fills time. Sometimes it delays something else.

This lady doesn’t need it.

You do the treatment anyway — frustrated. An annoying patient really annoys you now. What burns you out isn’t just the work, it’s doing work that isn’t needed, over and over, until it piles up.

This is the stage where you try to educate. You explain to nurses. You explain to doctors. You go out of your way to say why it isn’t necessary.

And in the end, you do it anyway.

You realize you just wasted valuable time and training. You’ve been busy all day, finally sit down, and another treatment pops up. You feel it physically. Acceptance doesn’t arrive calmly — it arrives irritated.

---

Stage 4: Acceptance

You stop fighting reality. You understand the job for what it is. You may look at other careers. You may even daydream about leaving.

Then you realize leaving would mean more school, less money, or starting over.

So you stay.

You do what you’re told. You get it done. The anger fades, but it doesn’t completely disappear.

---

Stage 5: Selective Engagement

At this stage, you simply go into action.

You don’t blow up. You don’t complain — at least not much. You don’t argue anymore. You don’t try to change the course of treatment. You just do it, get it done, and go back to the RT cave.

You chill.

This is where experience finally turns into control. You don’t rush for everything anymore — you triage with your brain. You know when something actually matters and when it doesn’t. You still show up when it counts. You still advocate when it matters.

But you stop letting every unnecessary call hijack your nervous system.

You don’t care less.
You care more precisely.

And maybe that’s the part no one tells you:
apathy isn’t the end stage.

Clarity is.