Chitchat with the Old Respiratory Codger

What a week Respiratory Care week was!

2009-11-17T15:28:00Z

Wow, what a week National Respiratory Care Week was! I hope you had as much fun and excitement as my staff and I did during this wonderful week where we have an opportunity to express our appreciation to staff members for the outstanding work they do every day throughout the year. I started this wonderful and exciting week with a visit to the RT Students at Victor Valley College, Victorville, CA. I presented what I hope were some valuable words of wisdom as they begin a new career and profession--...(read more)

A Respiratory Care "Survival" Kit for RC Week

2009-10-23T14:18:00Z

We all know that our profession can and is very stressful at times. This Respiratory Care Week, you might want to give your staff the Respiratory Care Survival Kit: RESPIRATORY CARE SURVIVAL KIT 1 Lifesaver - to thank you for the lives you save every day 1 Paper clip - to help you hold things together 1 Tootsie roll - to remind you of the important "roll" you play in patient care 1 Mint - to remind you we share in your commit"mint" 1 Rubberband - to remind you to stay flexible, especially on the...(read more)

What Will Respiratory Therapy Be Like in 2025?

2009-10-23T13:53:00Z

What will the Respiratory Therapy profession be like in 2025? My crystal ball is broken, so your guess is as good as mine. A colleague of mine made these predictions: In the year 2025: Small volume nebs will no longer be given due to increased risk of infection from air-born diseases. DPI takes the lead with MDI following. Ventilators will have biofeedback from the patient. Patient's base line blood gas will be entered in. Through non-invasive technology, the ventilator continuously monitors and...(read more)

What Is A Respiratory Care Practitioner?

2009-10-15T16:31:00Z

Have you ever been asked, "What is a Respiratory Care Practitioner?" Here is a little ditty I put together a decade or two ago based on some old, very old advertisements. You might like to share it with your staff during your week of celebration. Respiratory Care Practitioners are like Ford - they have better ideas. Respiratory Care Practitioners are like Coca-Cola - they're the real thing. Respiratory Care Practitioners are like Dial Soap - they care more, don't you wish everybody did. Respiratory...(read more)

Fun Ways to Celebrate Respiratory Care Week

2009-10-05T15:59:00Z

With only three weeks left before Respiratory Care Week, perhaps you are as busy as my team is preparing for this annual event. Each year, we form a Respiratory Care Week Committee to take charge of this celebration. This year, the committee decided to do a couple activities that I thought might interest others. First, we purchased scrub tops for everyone. The committee found a picture of a rib cage with lungs and a heart and they are going to have that picture silk-screened on the back of the scrub...(read more)

Respiratory Care Week 2009 Coming Soon

2009-09-24T17:39:00Z

It seems as though we were celebrating Respiratory Care Week 2008 only a couple of weeks ago. Now the 2009 version looms on the horizon. How quickly another year has flown by. One of my sons-in-law told me the reason the years seem to fly by faster as we grow older is that when you are 5 years old, one year represents 20 percent of your life, but when you are 40 years old, one year represents 2.5 percent. At age 70, one year represents only 1.4 percent of your life. Each year goes by faster because...(read more)

Reveling In One's Saturday Night Essence

2009-09-08T16:40:00Z

I was planning to write on a totally different topic for this post, but I received a very exciting telephone call a couple nights ago from someone who connected with her Saturday Night Essence. It wasn't from one of my staff or a respiratory therapy colleague from some exotic region of world, but from my second oldest daughter, a mother of five children and a grandmother to 2. She has been an interior designer for nearly three decades and works with clients who have million dollar homes in southern...(read more)

Delegating Responsibilities to Others

2009-08-19T17:35:00Z

Delegating responsibility is a challenging and sometimes difficult thing to do for many department managers, supervisors or lead therapists. One of the major reasons for this challenge is the assumption that "I can do it better." Some leaders belive that for a job to be done right, they must do it themselves. But how are other leaders going to be developed if the manager does it all himself all the time? It is the job of the leader to make those under his direction into better executives or managers...(read more)

On The Horizon: New Technology, Education & Pharmacology for Respiratory Therapy

2009-08-04T14:24:00Z

Where will our profession of respiratory therapy be in 5 to 10 years? What will the educational requirements be at that time? I've been reading and attending meetings last winter and again this summer where the subject has been the future of respiratory therapy. There seems to be many more questions than answers available at this time. However, there seems to be a general agreement that new therapies, new and more sophisticated equipment and new advances in pharmacology will require respiratory care...(read more)

Life Is Beautiful

2009-07-24T15:23:00Z

I was listening to the radio the other day and I heard this on a commercial: "Are you having difficulty dealing with everyday problems? Life is dreadful at best." "Life is dreadful at best"? Oh my. I couldn't believe what I heard and then I wondered if others felt the same way. If life is "dreadful at best," what do these people have to offer me? Anything they have must be less than the best and that would mean that life is even more dreadful. I have always thought that life was wonderful and beautiful,...(read more)

Are You One in a Million or One of the Millions?

2009-07-09T12:48:00Z

In my last post , I suggested that one must establish specific goals in order to become the person they were meant to be and successfully reach the impossible dream or one's Saturday-Night Essence. There is an old song that often keeps me headed in the right direction and it goes something like this: Climb every mountain Forge every stream Follow every rainbow Until you find your dream. Obtaining the impossible dream will not be easy and many sacrifices will be required in order for you to reach...(read more)

Goals for Your Saturday-Night Essence

2009-06-26T12:32:00Z

In the last several posts , I have been exploring the subject of one's Saturday-Night Essence or becoming the person you were meant to be and doing the things you were meant to do. This is an interesting subject as it seems that many people are stuck in miserable dead-end jobs, but they feel trapped and unable to break free from the shackles of an unpleasant situation. However, I hope these discussions have opened a few doors and you have had a glimpse of the person you were meant to be. The next...(read more)

Pursuing Your Saturday-Night Essence

2009-06-17T15:44:00Z

If you followed some of the suggestions I made in my last post regarding discovering your Saturday-Night Essence, you may have discovered that although you love your profession of respiratory care, there is still something missing. Perhaps it's something you have hidden in your mind as impractical and impossible to achieve and you slammed the door on that life you were meant to live. Do you have a strong yearning to use your knowledge, training, skills, and experience to work in a NICU? Perhaps you...(read more)

Discovering Your Saturday-Night Essence

2009-05-21T22:36:00Z

After my last post, Finding Your Saturday-Night Essence , several people asked me: "How do I discover my Saturday-Night Essence?" I don't claim to be an expert, but perhaps I can offer a few suggestions to point you in the right direction. Consider the following: Do you feel a tug to get back to your livelihood - after work and on weekends? I'm not talking about external deadlines, but internal desires. If not, then you are swimming upstream and your livelihood is more of a burden then a downhill...(read more)

Finding Your Saturday-Night Essence

2009-05-04T17:13:00Z

The other day, while I was listening to some "Timeless Favorites" on the radio, I heard "Whatever will be, Will be (Que Sera, Sera)" by Doris Day. Part of that song asks the question, "What will I be?" Back in the days before dirt and dinosaurs I remember wondering about that question. What will I be or what will I become? Over the last couple of centuries, I have come to realize that often people neglect their "Saturday-night essence" and fall into the first job that comes along. They stay in that...(read more)