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-- as well as a few gifts welcoming them to our exciting profession. 

I also brought with me a recent RT graduate who gave them some suggestions on the difference between being a student and being a licensed RCP and what they really needed to concentrate on before they graduated. 

The highlight of this activity was introducing them to the President of the California Society for Respiratory Care and allowing the students to interact and ask questions.

At the hospital, we had two wonderful and delicious catered lunches for both the day and night shifts. Our CEO attended one of those lunches and suggested that we ought to have a catered lunch everyday during RC Week in the future.  That sounded like a direct order and we shall comply.  

In addition to the delicious food, we also had gifts of appreciation for everyone as well as "Certificates of Recognition," Certificates of Excellence," and "Certificates of Leadership" that recognized something "special" about each staff member.  One of the gifts given to everyone (including our administration) was a scrub top with a picture of a rib cage and lungs.  Most of my staff wore them every day during RC Week.

We did something different this year and sponsored a hospital-wide chili cook-off with prizes for the three top winning recipes.  We had so many people wanting to enter their "award-winning" recipes that we had to finally stop taking entries.  We even had a couple of medical staff physicians enter!

It was an excellent activity that brought visibility to the Respiratory Care Department. We had a wonderful turn-out and served about a third of the hospital staff with some of the best chili I've ever eaten.  We also served delicious cornbread and a soda with each bowl of chili. 

One large crock pot of chili that went very quickly was the one made with buffalo meat.  We also had chili made with elk meat and we had rumors that someone was going to bring chili made with rattlesnake meat, but that didn't materialize. 

Everyone had an opportunity to sample any chili they wanted and then they voted for the one they thought was the best.  It was a huge success and our CEO suggested that we do it on a monthly basis.  I don't think we will, but we might make this an annual event. 

The highlight of the week, of course, was recognizing and announcing the individual that received the Respiratory Care Practitioner of the Year Award.  This individual has work at our facility for 25 years, graduated at the top of his RT Class, and has received both the "Employee of the Quarter Award" as well as the "Meritorious Award" from the hospital in the past.  He is a very knowledgeable, highly skilled, and well-trained respiratory therapist.  It was our privilege to honor him with this prestigious award.

Because Halloween came at the end of our official Respiratory Care Week this year, we joined a crescendo of other hospital activities that climaxed a wonderful week with a craft fair, costume awards (I got to wear my "Cat in the Hat" costume), scary decorations, good food, and lots of fun and excitement. We had unexpected visit from our CEO to our department who personally handed each employee an unexpected and surprising bonus check. 

What a week! I hope your Respiratory Care Week was as successful with as much fun and excitement as ours.

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 days you are stretched to the limit

1 Tea bag - to remind you to relax; you're doing a "tea"riffic job

1 Crayon - to color your world and the world around you

1 Band-aid - for all the aid you provide

2 Pennies - so you will always be able to put in your 2 cents

I hope that each of you will have a fantastic Respiratory Care Week with great fun and wonderful memories.

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 adjusts settings for target goal.
 
After an attempt to re-establish negative pressure ventilation, pressure ventilation becomes the standard with new modes that sense patient demands and makes changes for those demands or to meet preset goals.
 
The last function IPPB machine dies, and RCPs remember it as the first positive pressure ventilator.
 
Due to drug-resistant bacteria, universal precautions have advanced. All patient rooms are negative pressure rooms. A new affordable biohazard suit is introduced. PAPR has a new look and seal that prevents leaks improving RCP safety.
 
Korea discovers that the large smoking population of past years is now raising the cost of healthcare. However, stem cell research has enabled scientists in Korea to grow individualized hearts and lungs. The newly grown lungs are surprisingly affordable-more affordable than paying for chronic illness.
 
How's that for imagination?

What will the innovations of today look like to our colleagues in 2025? In 2008, we assembled a time capsule for Respiratory Care Week to be opened by colleagues at our facility in 2025. Here is a list of items we included in our time capsule:

• List of currently used respiratory therapy medications
• Copies of our current protocols
• Copies of our policy and procedures
• List of the Respiratory Care Week Committee members and recipients of the prestigious "Respiratory Care Practitioner of the Year Award"
• Picture and list of current RC Staff
• List of currently in use equipment
• Pictures of our current equipment

This might be a fun activity Respiratory Care Week activity for your department. Perhaps you might even include in the time capsule some equipment such as nasal cannulas, oxygen masks, nebulizers, BAN (Breath Activated Nebulizer), self-inflating bags, flow-inflation bags, endotracheal tubes, LMA (Laryngeal Mask Airway), laryngoscope and blades, disposable optical laryngoscope, ABG kits, arterial line insertion kit, incentive spirometer, PEP, acapella, peak flow meter, etc.

If you decide to create your own time capsule, I hope you are around in 15, 20 or 25 years to open it and revel with your colleagues in the things of yesteryears.

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 Care Practitioners are like VO5 hair spray - their goodness holds in all kinds of weather.

Respiratory Care Practitioners are like Standard Oil - you expect more and get it.

Respiratory Care Practitioners are like Frosted Flakes - they're Grrrreeeeeeeeeeeaaaaat!!!!!!!!!!!

But most of all, Respiratory Care Practitioners are like Hallmark Cards - they care enough to give the very best!

HAPPY RESPIRATORY CARE WEEK!

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 tops. They will give the scrub tops to everyone in the department, including our administration and medical director. 

They also decided to have two catered lunches for both the day shift people as well as the night shift instead of just one for each group. 

For a finale, we have invited the entire hospital staff (including the medical staff) to participate in a Respiratory Care Week Chili Cook-Off by either entering their favorite chili recipe or just coming and enjoying a wonderful and delightful epicurean extravaganza of chili, cornbread, and sodas. An impartial unbiased panel of judges (respiratory care practitioners, of course) will award prizes for the best judged chili recipes. 

Like us, you have probably also noticed that Halloween comes at the end of Respiratory Care Week this year. This awesome committee decided to end our week of celebration with everyone dressing up as a Dr. Seuss characters.  I was selected to be the "Cat in the Hat" and a very talented lady is working very hard to make my costume for me.  Of course, there will be more delicious food and the department will be decorated appropriately for the occasion - that part has already been completed.

What fun things are you doing to celebrate this auspicious occasion of Respiratory Care Week - 2009?

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 each year represents less and less time of your life.

I don't know whether that's true or not, but the years do seem to go by more quickly as we get older.

In five weeks we will celebrate Respiratory Care Week 2009. Although I believe we should show our appreciation to our staff throughout the year, this is the one week we can pay special tribute to our therapists who serve our patients so well throughout the year.

We make an effort here to have a least two catered luncheons during this special week. In addition, we recognize one individual as our very own "Respiratory Care Practitioner of the Year" and award that individual with a special trophy, a basket of goodies, a gift certificate to a fine dinning place, a name engraved on a permanent plaque that hangs in the main hallway of our department and an all-expense paid trip to the state respiratory care convention each year.

There also is a nice write-up in our local hospital newsletter. In addition, we have gifts of appreciation and awards for everyone, and our local newspapers print nice articles in their papers about respiratory care.

I think all of us are interested in what other departments do to celebrate Respiratory Care Week, and I hope you will be willing to share those activities with all of us.

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 California. 

From time to time I share some of my articles with my family and several months ago I gave them the address for my blog. Unbeknown to me this particular daughter actually read that series of articles I had written on one's Saturday-Night Essence.

While she enjoyed being an interior designer, she felt that there was more she could and needed to do to fulfill her dreams.  She made a list of all the things she enjoys doing, especially in her free time, but nothing seemed to be her Saturday-Night Essence.

One of the things she does extremely well is floral arrangements--with most of her arrangements selling for $150 to $500--so she decided to give that a try. She created floral arrangements for several wedding and, although she enjoyed doing them, it wasn't something she wanted to do forever and make into a career. 

Again, she read and reread Finding Your Saturday-Night Essence, Discovering Your Saturday-Night Essence, Pursuing Your Saturday-Night Essence and Goals For Your Saturday-Night Essence and she continued to ponder these blog posts for days to determine what her Saturday-Night Essence might be. 

About a week before she called me, she received an unexpected telephone call from an executive in New York City from a company that has numerous interior design center showrooms across the country. He wanted to know if my daughter would be interested in a new position that was open for a design center manager.

Initially, she was overwhelmed by this invitation and asked for more information regarding the open position.  She was given a very generic description of the job--which would be like someone calling one of us and asking us if we wanted a job as a respiratory therapist. 

Since she had been reading my blog and pondering her Saturday Night Essence for several weeks, she decided to accept his invitation for an interview. Afterwards, she called me to ask about the do's and don'ts to consider during a job interview as she hadn't been to a job interview in about 30 years. At this point I was unaware that she had read my blog and I simply told her to be herself. Be honest and let the individual conducting the interview know of her dreams and aspirations, I said.

The day of the interview came and everything appeared to have gone very well. She called me two days later to tell me everything that had happened since we last talked.  She told me that once again she spent hours reading and rereading the articles on Pursuing Your Saturday-Night Essence and setting Goals for Your Saturday-Night Essence.

Then she reviewed for me a most exciting part of this adventure. During the interview, she felt extremely comfortable and very much at ease.  She said that a strange thing had happened during the interview: she heard words flowing effortlessly from her about her dreams and aspirations that she had never shared with anyone before. She wondered who was talking, because they didn't seem to be words that she would express.  I suggested that she had connected with her Saturday-Night Essence and that her thoughts and ability to express herself came easily to her at that point.

As the interview came to a conclusion the executive from New York began to elaborate more fully on the exact details of what the job entailed and it was much more then just a manager of a design center showroom.  It was my daughter's dream, her Saturday-Night Essence.  Within a few hours, she was offered the job and what had only been a dream had turned into reality.  The executive told her as he extended the job offer to her, "We've been looking for you a very long time." 

So often I write articles and never know if anyone ever reads them let alone actually puts them into practice, but this is one series of articles that did have an effect on at least one individual and it appears to have helped her pursue her dream and to find her Saturday-Night Essence. 

I would love to hear if anyone else has a success story to share.

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 than he himself is and prepare not just one but many who can take over his responsibilities if he is no longer available.

On Andrew Carnegie's tombstone is written: "Here lies a man who knew how to enlist in his service better men than himself." Theodore Roosevelt once said that the best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

Delegation is not abdication. A leader does not lose his authority or his responsibility when he delegates. He must still remain primarily responsible and must guarantee the success of the one to whom the responsibility is delegated. He cannot delegate and then turn his back on what occurs afterward.

It is the responsibility of the one who has delegated the authority to see that the assignment is understood, accepted and fully performed. He must inspect; he must train; he must encourage; he must supervise the one to whom the responsibility has been given. No one can delegate away his responsibility. He delegates his responsibility without losing it. Delegation without control is irresponsibility.

There is no real delegation if the responsibility has not been fully accepted. But just as delegation is not abdication, neither does the acceptance of responsibility mean usurpation. The importance of acceptance cannot be overemphasized. If there is full acceptance, then the delegation should be made without reservation. The leader should delegate the whole job with all of its satisfactions, prestige and rewards. This offers a challenge worthy of the highest dedication to both the one making and the one accepting the delegation.

The art of delegation involves some of the greatest administrative skills. We ought to give it constant, complete and continual study and then back up our study with practice.

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 practitioners to have no less then a bachelor's degree with master's and doctorate degrees on the horizon. 

I find this very exciting and look forward to seeing what will transpire and develop in the next decade within our profession.  Each day is a new adventure for me and I have the same feeling of excitement that I had as a young teenager. Each day becomes more exciting than the last.

Now is the time that we need to begin to prepare the next generation of respiratory care professionals by providing them with the education and tools they will need to provide the most appropriate and the best possible care for our patients.

Every day seems to bring forth new knowledge, new technology, new ways of caring for our patients, new therapies, new medications, new equipment, and new ways to help us do our job more efficiently and more effectively. 

As a teenager, I never imagined that many of the things that I've witnessed would ever happen in my lifetime. I am doing things today that were unheard of just a decade or two ago. In fact, we are using equipment today that didn't exist 5 years ago as well as medications and procedures that have all been created within the last several years. 

What will the next decade bring to our grasp?  I don't know, but I sure hope I'm around to see what it is and to do things I haven't even imagined yet.  Can you imagine what our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will witness and what an adventure they will experience?  I hope I'm around to enjoy it with them.

"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, and I've thoroughly enjoyed my sojourn here. That isn't to say there haven't been challenges, but from each test, I have tried to learn and better myself.

Challenging times enrich our lives and make us stronger. They enhance our understanding of ourselves as well as our life and those with whom we associate. Just as a muscle needs resistance to grow and become stronger, we need the various challenges to develop our intellect, improve our understanding, and strengthen our compassion and empathy for others.

Life is never perfect for anyone, but everyone ultimately makes choices regarding what to do with what he or she is handed. We can be accountable or we can blame others for our lot in life, but choosing the former is a much less complicated, more productive relationship-enhancing way to live.

I sincerely believe that man is here to be successful and failure is not an option, and each challenge that is thrown up is an opportunity to increase wisdom, intelligence, and strength. I hope that each of us will find life exciting, exhilarating, and challenging and that each of us will enjoy the journey.

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 those lofty goals of your Saturday-Night Essence, but it is worth whatever it takes. If it were easy, many would have already achieved those desirable goals, but surveys suggest that a vast majority of people hate their jobs and experience unhappy lives.

What is it that you need to do to reach your goals? Perhaps more importantly, are you willing to do whatever it takes and make whatever sacrifices are required to obtain your goals?

To work in a NICU, some facilities require that you obtain a Neonatal-Pediatric Specialist (NPS) credential or a Neonatal Resuscitation Program certificate. Some may require you to be a Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT). There are some facilities that require an RRT certification to work in the ICU, and many hospitals now require Basic Life Support (BLS), Advance Cardiac Life Support (ACLS), Pediatric Advance Life Support (PALS), and Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) certifications as many RTs cover the whole hospital. If you are interested in management, you might want to consider getting at least a bachelor's degree or higher. If you want to teach respiratory therapy, then a master's degree will probably be required as well as being an RRT.

Remember that more often than not those who win believe they can, and to reach our greatest potential, we must set our sights high and embrace the unknown confidently. Resolve in your own mind that you will succeed. The greatest discovery one can make is that nothing is impossible. Whether you are one in a million or one of the millions is up to you. Cultivate the characteristics that make you unique and tap into your deepest potential and you will become the person you were meant to be. Rise above the mists of complacency and make the most of the opportunities you have been given.

Your thoughts.

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 step is to develop some goals. These will vary depending on where you are and what you really want to do.

I need to set professional, personal, and family goals in order to keep my mind fresh and my life progressing. Each year I begin by reviewing the previous year's goals and then I begin to formulate goals for the current year. Most years I'm surprised by the number of goals that have been accomplished and often exceeded.

Someone once told me, "Remember that when you see a man on top of a mountain he didn't fall there." He got there by having a goal and by climbing each step of the way. It is a process of setting goals and reaching them one at a time. You have to know where you want to go and always keep your eye on that vision.

Success isn't never falling; rather, it's rising every time you fall. There will be discouraging factors that enter the productive periods of our lives as we seek our goals, but if we can get up one time more than we go down, we will always win. Life is problem solving, and in solving our problems, we mature and develop and we learn to be creative.

We have within us the ability to succeed in life and to accomplish whatever we wish in whatever our field of pursuit might be. Unfortunately, many of us fall prey to the mediocre life because we haven't fully capitalized on the talents and abilities we posses and have failed to realize the person we were meant to be.

Do you have a strong yearning to use your knowledge, training, skills, and experience to work in a NICU? Perhaps you have a passion to work in a PICU? Your excuse is that it is impractical or your facility doesn't have a NICU or a PICU. If that is your innermost desire, then it may require more education, new certifications, or maybe a move to another city or at least some additional travel.

There was an individual who was working as a senior executive in a successful company and one day he found his Saturday-Night Essence. He always wanted to be an artist, but his parents, siblings, friends, teachers, counselors, and relatives all convinced him that he could never make a living or support his family being an artist. He buried his Saturday-Night Essence deep in his mind as being impractical as well as impossible.

However, later in life he decided to pursue his dream of being an artist and continued to work for the same company during his pursuit. Soon, the company recognized his skills and they used his artistic talents within the company structure, which opened more doors and more opportunities. Within a short time, he left his position as a senior executive of the company to continue his Saturday-Night Essence. He was happy beyond expression and felt fulfilled and exhilarated about life again.

I have a classmate from respiratory school that is an excellent therapist and she actually worked for me for about a year, but her Saturday-Night Essence was something different: home care. She spent a couple years learning home care and decided to open her own business. Now, she has the only full-service home care company in town.

What a difference she has made in area patients with respiratory diseases. She has taken the time to teach them about their disease and medications. As a result, she has significantly reduced the number of ER visits and hospitalizations for her patients. She found her Saturday-Night Essence and has turned an impractical or impossible situation in her mind into a great love affair and a thriving business.

I had a former student who loved respiratory care, and he desired to work on a transport team. However, he could not see a way that his deep desire could ever come to fruition. I gave him some suggestions on pursuing his Saturday-Night Essence and he, his wife, and children decided to move to a city with several large medical centers. Over five years, he progressed from a floor therapist to his Saturday-Night Essence and beyond. He is now involved with surface and air transport as well as international transports.

Another colleague has discovered her Saturday-Night Essence, and with persistence, she has continued her education from an associate's to a bachelor's to a master's degree. She now enjoys her dream of still being closely associated with her beloved respiratory care but works at the level of a senior hospital executive as an associate administrator.

The beauty of your new adventure in life is this: It gets more and more exciting the further you go. Man was made to create. Creating value for yourself and others with your Saturday-Night Essence is far better then to stagnate.

Each day, each week, gets you more and more involved in the person you were meant to be and that's fun. There is nothing better than traveling through life on the path you were destined to travel and doing what truly impassions you. Suddenly, you are where you belong, and you know it. It is the love for your journey that will bring you major success. Once you're on your way, you know it, and nothing can stop you. Enjoy your journey!

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 rush. If you had found your Saturday-Night Essence, then thinking about work would be a natural downhill rush. 

To discover your unique path is not easy because your mind will not open the door to it.  Your unique path has been buried by falling leaves of resignation over time, so you might not recognize it even if you are looking at it. 

The life you were meant to live has been filed away somewhere in your mind, perhaps permanently shut off in some closed section called "The Impractical Section." Let's not argue practicality for now, but open your mind (or at least stretch you mind) to discover your unique path and the person you were meant to be.  How to pursue your Saturday-Night Essence is a topic perhaps for another time and place. 

For now, remember back over the past year. Write down what you did in the evenings and weekends.  The more humdrum or boring it is, the more value it will be to you in discovering the person you were meant to be. 

Was there ever a weekday evening or weekend in which you would have done something different then what you did, not because of some external demand or deadline, but rather because you wanted to? 

Was there something different that was not a chore, not something you had to force yourself to do, but rather something you wanted to do?  I'm not saying anything like going to a football game or the theatre or some other passive entertainment, but something that took initiative on your part? 

Can you remember moments in your life when you broke from your normal evenings and weekends? It may have happened only once, but you are looking for an activity, project, or interest that pulled you away-by your own will-from the environment that normally surrounds you.  How did you feel while doing that special activity?  Ask yourself: why did you not continue to pursue it more aggressively? 

What motivates or inspires you when you focus your thoughts naturally in the evenings and weekends? Does the idea of success or power excite you? 

Answering the questions potentially sheds light inside your psyche on a tiny cell of motivation that is uniquely yours. Your Saturday-Night Essence always exists in you and you just need to identify it.  What is something that you are drawn to, something that genuinely interests you? Perhaps it is something that you have always been drawn to or sometimes it is a clue of something you like to read about.  Forget about any kind of judgment for now, just think about something that naturally attracts you and has done so over your life. 

Try to finally see that recurring interest - try now to see the trend over your life and pay attention to that particular interest.  Does that thought excite you?  If so, you have discovered something that brings you passion and deep motivation.  You have discovered an interest that has downhill focus for you to pursue.  You have discovered your Saturday-Night Essence. 

This discovery will pull you out of your rut and send you along your unique path toward exciting success, happiness and romantic love. The beauty of finding your Saturday-Night Essence is a new adventure in life and it gets more and more exhilarating the further you go.  With each day, each week, gets you more and more involved with the person you were meant to be. It is the love for the journey that will bring you to major success.  Once you're on your way, you know it, and nothing can stop you.

In two weeks, I'll talk about pursuing your Saturday-Night Essence as it relates to your current vocation or livelihood.

Your thoughts?

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 dead-end job because soon thereafter they marry, start a family, and feel like they can't do what they really would like to do.  Over time, stagnation sets in and creativity and true happiness dwindle.

A question we all have to ask ourselves at some point in our lives is this, am I a respiratory therapist because I love what I'm doing and I'm creating something of great value for society or did I just fall into this profession because of circumstances and a quick way to make a decent income that would enable me to support a family in a way that I wanted?   Only you, of course, can answer that question. 

That brings me to the Saturday-night essence.  What is your Saturday-night essence?  What do you look forward to doing Saturday night or on your day off work?  What hobby or hobbies do you have?  What do you do for fun?  What is it that you would rather do more then anything else?  Whatever that is, that's your Saturday-night essence and it should guide you or perhaps even guide your children in choosing a vocation. 

Many years ago, as a new high school graduate, I went to work in a hospital as an orderly (which should age me very quickly... It may have even been before Inhalation Therapy. I remember moving a lot of "H" cylinders throughout the hospital without the aid of a dolly.)  I learned a lot and discovered that I didn't want to be an orderly the rest of my life.

I observed other healthcare professionals at work and when a position for a surgery technician or scrub nurse opened, I applied for the position.  I must admit I think I had a little help in getting that job as my father-in-law was an anesthesiologist at the hospital and I knew the director of surgery from various social gatherings at my in-laws' home. It was my father-in-law and later two brothers-in-law, both physicians, who suggested that respiratory therapy might be something to seriously consider.  My father-in-law was an excellent mentor and I probably had more intubations before I started respiratory therapy school then most RT's have in their careers.  I also worked for several years as a perfusionist and surgery assistant.

As I gained experience it became obvious to me that respiratory therapy was indeed my Saturday-night essence.  As a result, it has been an exhilarating experience of creativity and of social value for me.  Doors have opened that I'm convinced would have forever remained closed if I hadn't followed after and successfully achieved my Saturday-night essence.

Much has been said and many suggestions offered regarding hiring the right person or A-Team for any profession, but especially respiratory therapy.  Searching for the prospective employee's Saturday-night essence during an employment interview may secure the right person for the job and help retaining that right person in your department. 

I certainly have made my share of mistakes in hiring people whose Saturday-night essence was not respiratory therapy and, in every case, the ending was not a happy one for either of us.  I am fortunate today because I have a staff of respiratory therapists who are passionate about their profession and they look forward to coming to work everyday and they are happy, having fun and enjoying the journey.

Your thoughts?