Respiratory Therapy is an allied health profession in which the provider cares for patients with breathing disorders. The respiratory therapist assumes primary responsibility for all respiratory care treatments. They treat patients of all ages, from premature infants to the elderly. Health conditions that require respiratory care include asthma, emphysema, chronic obstructive lung disease, pneumonia, cystic fibrosis, infant respiratory distress syndrome, and conditions brought on by shock, trauma, or postoperative complications.
Respiratory therapists perform a wide variety of care-giving tasks, including evaluation of a patient’s lung capacity; providing temporary relief to patients with chronic asthma or emphysema; caring for victims of heart attack, stroke, drowning, or shock; providing oxygen or oxygen mixtures, aerosol medications, and chest physiotherapy; and regularly checking patients and their equipment.
Respiratory therapists are employed in hospital specialty areas such as labor and delivery; neonatal and pediatric intensive care units; pulmonary function laboratories; sleep laboratories; adult intensive care units; extra corporeal membrane oxygenation; and ECG testing. In addition to hospitals, the respiratory therapist delivers respiratory care in the patients’ homes, rehabilitation agencies, nursing homes, out-patient clinics, and physicians’ offices.
100% of our 2009 Respiratory Therapy graduates successfully passed the entry-level Respiratory Therapy Credentialing Exam that is required for licensing in the State of Vermont.
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