“Climb Every Mountain
Forge Every Stream
Follow Every Rainbow
‘til You Find Your Dream.”

That song of yesteryear expresses my personal life motivation. I look forward to going to work everyday and will often wake up before the alarm goes off because I’m excited to be able to contribute something of value to our profession. But not everyone has the same motivation or values.

Old Respiratory Codger is my attempt to be an advocate and mentor for respiratory care department managers, to help them find the values that make them, their patients, their department, hospital, and community happy. I’ll explore topics like providing and promoting comprehensive quality healthcare for the patients we serve around the world, and share with you, my esteemed colleagues, the experience I’ve had and the mistakes I’ve made over the decades.

I want to provide respiratory care managers with a forum to express their ideas in a friendly, non-judgmental environment and to talk about their experiences that may be helpful to others. Sharing experience saves time, helps us all avoid the pitfalls that have snared others in the past and saves us from having to reinvent solutions in the future.

Hopefully, by sharing our mutual concerns and challenges, we can help each other move forward at light-speed to expand our intellect, our vision for the future, and our ability to overcome our past mistakes. We can awaken the desire in our hearts to provide the best healthcare available and to establish a work environment that provides employees with an opportunity to produce value in our society. 

I hope that during our sojourn on earth each of us will find our dreams and enjoy the journey along many Happy Trails.

Roger L. Berg, PhD, RRT-NPS is manager of the Cardiopulmonary Services & Telemedicine Departments at Ridgecrest Regional Hospital in Ridgecrest, Ca., a position he has held for the past ten years. Concurrently, Roger worked as an associate faculty member at Victor Valley College in Victorville, Ca., where he teaches both in the classroom and as a clinical instructor.

Currently, Roger acts as the Editor of the AARC Management Section Bulletin. As an active member of the AARC, he has worked in this position for the past two years and has served on the program committee for the AARC International Congress. He is active on the AARC Management, Acute-Care, Neo-Pediatric, Sleep, and Education listserv as well others, and is an active member of the California Society for Respiratory Care.

For the last two years, Roger has worked as an Item Writer for the NBRC and as a lecture presenter at the High Sierra Critical Care Conference in Reno, Nevada. He has published several articles in the AARC Management Section Bulletin and RT Magazine. Roger is married with 6 children, 27 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. He lives in Apple Valley, California.