If you're anything like me, you enjoy a good trauma case or a code. Helping patients with breathing treatments, O2 rounds, ambulation, etc. are all great things-- but there's nothing like the rush you get from an emergent situation. There are so many factors that go into each individual code situation; sometimes it's hard to keep up. In this ...

''Real leaders are ordinary people with extraordinary determination'' -Unknown We are all born ordinary. We're all genetically the same, more or less. However, not everyone's intentions and drive are the same. When I was nearing the end of my stay as a respiratory student at Laurel Business Institute in Uniontown, PA, I felt a ...

The first edition of ''The Respiratory Resolution'' comes from a recently accepted RT student named Keshia. She asked: I was recently accepted into the RT program and very excited, however, I am very nervous about the math portion.  Do you have any suggestion about studying, time management, anything that would be helpful? Congrats ...

Since my last blog post, I've been very pleasantly surprised at the amount of people reaching out to me for advice and thoughts on the respiratory profession! People seem to share a lot of the same concerns, and I felt like we needed a refuge for these people; a place where students can gather and work through this oftentimes very difficult ...

I always enjoy speaking with respiratory students. It's actually one of my favorite things about being in the profession. Below is an email I received from ''John, SRT'' on some of his fears, thoughts, and questions. I would like to encourage any students who read this blog to contact me. As I said, I enjoy helping people, and not just patients. ...

It's funny to think back to your ''early days'' of respiratory. I distinctly remember the very first patient I ever talked to. See, back then, it was a monumental feat for me to even speak to the patients -- that's how nervous I was. It happened in my second week of clinicals. (Now I know what some of you are thinking: ''You didn't speak to a ...

It's been one year since I got my first job in respiratory, and what a year it's been. It's also the anniversary of starting my blog here at ADVANCE. All throughout school, multiple therapists told me that I will learn more in my first year of actually doing the job than I did in the whole of my schooling. This is 100 percent true. While in ...

A friend of mine just got her first nursing job, and she starts tomorrow. She was in nursing school while I was in respiratory school, both of us working our way through school at a small grocery store. She said how nervous she felt (something she's quite prone to). ''You'll be fine,'' I said, as usual. I've repeated those same three words since ...

It's so hard to think of something to blog about when it seems like you're out of the ''hospital loop.'' Where I was once enjoying 16-hour shifts and the chaos of getting STAT pages on opposite sides of the hospital, my life is pretty relaxed right now--and that's not necessarily a good thing.In lieu of the all the financial problems that plagued ...

Being unemployed seemed like a blessing in disguise at first. I mean, who wouldn't want to receive an unemployment check to stay home and catch up on the little odds and ends that accumulate when you are on a strict, busy schedule of day and night shifts? Sure, there are people who like to be busy all the time--I'm one of them. But I defy anyone ...