I suppose it was bound to happen. You can't go through your life being beloved by everyone you meet. Sometimes, for reasons difficult to understand, or for no particular reason at all, people just don't like you. I decided to pick up the weekend shift and help a buddy out who had overbooked himself. I was cruising along nicely on Saturday when I ...

The FDA has approved a new weapon to treat COPD. It is called Breo, an inhaled drug by GlaxoSmithKline of Britain and Theravance of the United States. It consists of a corticosteroid, fluticasone furoate, and a long-acting beta-agonist called vilanterol. The product is delivered through a palm-sized device called Ellipta. It is known as Relvar ...

It has been almost two years now since I graduated school and became a respiratory therapist. Which means it has been almost two years since I have studied something with the goal of testing towards an advancement in my education/career/life. It seems like a disproportionately large amount of my life thus far has been spent in an effort to obtain ...

The health care industry can learn a lot from business. If you do not think health care is a business, you're wrong. Just check out the forms you fill out, the charting you do, and the cashier's cage. One of the failures I see in health care is an inadequate attention to project management. Project management can cover everything from planning ...

You know sometimes I feel sorry for smokers. I had this guy come in the other day to see the pulmonologist and before I did his PFT I asked him if he smokes. He hung his head in shame and muttered a bit while shaking his head, ''Yeah ... dang it ... I've cut way back though...'' I try to make it a point not to pity nor shame patients of mine who ...

When I am nervous my hands shake. I try to hide it, and have learned to steady myself down to a light tremor, but I just can't shake the shakes. I pride myself on remaining calm in a high-pressure situation: a code, a bad baby, etc., but my hands indicate otherwise. I have been told by a few of my co-workers that they had they not seen my hands ...

A doc told me once, ''Every good RT always has a stethoscope, a pulse ox and a Christmas tree on them at all times.'' Now I don't subscribe to the Christmas tree theory; there are Christmas trees on nearly every flow meter in our hospital and I prefer to carry a penlight instead. A pulse ox is a pulse ox as far as I am concerned, as long as I have ...

So there I was finishing up the last few treatments of an otherwise un-notable Friday shift when I get a stat call to a patient room where a flight crew is trying to set up their bipap on a patient who is to be transferred to another facility for respiratory failure. Usually when the flight crew arrives, after we have given report, our role in the ...

The winter whitewash is leaving us here in Missouri, and spring rains are starting to fall. Many welcome the change (along with the change on the clock), but for a few, a harrowing season is just getting started: Allergy season. Allergy season is such an issue for so many that websites have been set up to help those dealing with it. Sites like ...

I write an opinion blog. Everyone has an opinion. I know this, and I know that each time I write, some will agree and some disagree. Some people just take pleasure in spreading rumors to stir the pot. This seems to be the case of some of those on Facebook -- in particular, a relatively new group to the RT scene which has done little more than ...