OverviewRespiratory care — the evaluation, treatment and care of patients with breathing or cardiopulmonary disorders — is a crucial function in modern health care. Practicing under the direction of a physician, respiratory therapists assume primary responsibility for all therapeutic treatments and diagnostic procedures.
Respiratory therapists also provide complex therapy requiring considerable independent judgment, such as caring for patients on life support in intensive-care units of hospitals or providing home care for patients on ventilators and life-support systems. Respiratory therapists evaluate and treat all types of patients, ranging from premature infants whose lungs are not fully developed to elderly people whose lungs are diseased.
They provide temporary relief to patients with chronic asthma or emphysema, as well as emergency care to patients who are victims of a heart attack, stroke, drowning or shock. Therapists’ tasks are expanding into areas such as pulmonary rehabilitation, smoking cessation counseling, disease prevention, case management and polysomnography (the diagnosis of breathing disorders during sleep, such as apnea).
Respiratory therapists also increasingly treat critical care patients, either as part of surface- and air-transport teams or as part of rapid-response teams in hospitals.
Career
The graduating class of 2017 saw 100 percent of students find a job within six months of graduation. Their employers rated them as satisfactory in all areas of review. One-hundred percent of this class passed the Therapist Multiple Choice Board Exam. This exam is one of the tools used by our accreditors to evaluate our program. This class also has a 100 percent pass rate for the Clinical Simulation Exam, which confers the title of Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT).
