Respiratory Therapy 101 Just Keep BreathingRespiratory Therapy 101 Just Keep BreathingRespiratory Therapy 101 is a blog about my life in the world of medicine. I am a respiratory therapist, and my job is to make sure that people keep breathing. It is an important job because if they are not breathing, they are not doing anything else. Articles
Frequent Flyers: A comprehensive guide
2007-12-15 04:22:00 Wow. I have been beaten in every aspect by The Happy Hospitalist’s Frequent Flyer Club. It is a total, comprehensive guide to all of the chronic patients that we have to deal with. I am impressed! Hat tip to Shadowfax at Movin’ Meat who originally posted this awesome link. More About: Guide , Flyers , Comprehensive
Vindicated!
2007-12-13 02:47:00 As you may recall I had some rage issues with a nurse in the PACU a little while ago. Today, much to my delight, I met that same nurse in the PACU when I had to wheel over a “wake-up vent.” When I saw her, I made eye contact and then simply turned and ignored her. ... More About: Vindicated
My job, in a nutshell
2007-12-12 02:10:00 I have always loved the online cartoon Red Meat. Today’s strip seems to sum up my job in a nutshell.
Am I Crazy?
2007-12-11 04:28:00 I often wonder if I am actually very crazy and simply unaware of it. If I am crazy, I think I have some kind of Crazy Power Disorder, where beneath my mild-mannered exterior is a raging megalomaniacal egotist who is just waiting for a chance to get loose. I often begin to wonder if I ...
It?s a conspiracy
2007-12-10 04:49:00 I was on a website for song lyrics earlier this evening attempting to decipher the wailings of a vocalist whose tunes I enjoy listening to when I noticed an ad at the top of the webpage. For Proventil HFA. This is why I spent my day doing Q4 treatments on people who have absolutely no indication for ... More About: Conspiracy
Back to the floors
2007-12-10 04:01:00 I was relegated to the floors today. At first I was afraid that it was punitive, but then I was informed that it was a simple error and that my float had been recorded again so that with any luck I won’t have to go back to the floors soon. It’s not floor therapy itself that ... More About: Back , Floors
The RT Christmas party
2007-12-08 06:11:00 Tonight was the Sunny Flats Respiratory Care Services Christmas Bash. Those of us who weren’t working nights or feeling antisocial went and gathered at the clubhouse of a local country club to eat, drink and be merry. The party began at seven and was slated to continue until eleven. I knew I wouldn’t be able to ... More About: Party , Christmas party
Maybe we can learn from the penguins
2007-12-08 02:22:00 Here’s a fascinating tidbit: Penguins can return to the surface after long dives with “blood oxygen levels,” presumably the Penguin equivalent of their PaO2, that are approaching zero. Evidently their hemoglobin is structured differently form ours in some insane way that makes it more efficient, so that penguins can dive to untold depths for up ... More About: Learn
How I became a respiratory therapist
2007-12-07 04:27:00 This is a subject I’ve not yet covered. I’m sure there are those among you who are wondering, “how did this weirdo get into respiratory therapy in the first place?” I aim to answer your question today. I decided to do this when discussing my entry to the land of RT with my charge therapist ... More About: Therapist , Thera
Rule 2: Gomers Go To Ground
2007-12-06 00:38:00 This is part two in my series on the Rule s of the House of God. I am continuing this series out of a combination of boredom and a fascination with the cynicism in Shem’s work. Rule number two in The Rules states that Gomers Go to Ground . “Go to Ground” is a nice way of saying ...
Screamers: Part II
2007-12-03 05:05:00 Today was another exciting day in the CCU. Our screamer from yesterday, the lady who screamed for STANLEY and THE POTTY all day, was in rare form after a restful night on BiPAP. She began the morning with a lovely, rousing rendition of STANLEY! GET ME STANLEY! STAAAANLEEEEY! which was followed by a solid two-hour ... More About: Part
Screamers
2007-12-02 04:43:00 Forgive me for the relatively poor quality of this post. It has been a long and tiring few days; I was working in the ER Friday and did 32 blood gases, 35 treatments, a couple of BiPAPs and transports and general nonsense so I was beat. And today I had a lengthy and insane day ...
More to come, but meanwhile?
2007-11-29 17:10:00 Another article in my series on the Rules of the House of God is coming up, but in the meantime, why not enjoy some other blogs? Freadom over in the RT Cave has written a good Q-and-A about rescue bronchodilators, those wonderfully abused but mostly harmless drugs. He’s hinting at a crucial point, which is that ...
Nice Web, Mister Crack Spider
2007-11-28 20:01:00 I know it’s been posted before–in fact, I am stealing it to re-post from the bored attorney over at Addicted to Medblogs. It’s just too amusing to me not to post this and share the madness with the rest of you. More About: Crack , Spider , Nice
Weeeird
2007-11-28 01:58:00 From a combination of boredom and lack of other shows on TV, I am watching one of those silly TRAUMA: Life in the ER shows on the discovery health channel. I just saw a physician with whom I have personally worked and interacted during my RT training at a big medical center. She was the ...
Hope springs eternal?
2007-11-27 01:58:00 Sometimes I put on those silly ER shows in the background while I am puttering around the house doing things. I don’t mean the fictional shows like “ER” where the doctors do everything and the nurses want nothing more than to bed them and steal their fortune; I mean the “real” shows where some dude ... More About: Hope , Eternal
File under ?Duh?
2007-11-25 19:36:00 Wow! According to some amazing new research, government programs for the needy place an undue burden on emergency services. Who would have possibly guessed it? Now, before I get a thousand snippy comments from people who are angry that I am suggesting that the poor should be denied emergency services, let me clarify this. The reason ... More About: File
More tattoos
2007-11-25 02:43:00 Not too long ago I told you the tale of a rather intriguing and ironic tattoo that I saw at work. Recently another tat has trumped the previous one. The patient is a man who was walking down the highway at night after snorting cocaine. He was walking in the dark on the side of a ... More About: Tattoos
Not your typical blood gas
2007-11-22 04:24:00 This is a story that will stay with me for the rest of my life. No matter how I try to forget this little gem, it will always remain locked inside of my brains somewhere, just waiting to come out. Anybody who’s offended by the fact that people have genitals should stop reading this right ... More About: Doctors , Blood , Pica
Medicine in the mass media
2007-11-20 17:18:00 I think we all know that the mass media has a tendency to skew information. I try not to put too much stock into anything that the media tells us because most of the time it is either factually inaccurate or deliberately skewed. This is especially true when it comes to medicine in the media. Reporting ... More About: Media , Medicine , Mass Media , Mass
Monday Roundup
2007-11-19 22:11:00 Well, it’s Monday and I am far too lazy to actually make any content today. So for your amusement, I present to you some links! First, Julia at Snotjockeys Revisited has written an informative and fascinating piece about resistance to change. She explores some of the reasons behind the resistance to changes in the medical field, ... More About: Roundup
Gomers Revisited: Sympathy
2007-11-19 05:50:00 Despite my recent raving about Gomers and the frustrations that they bring to the healthcare world, I honestly feel a lot of sympathy for them. They’re feeble old people who should have been allowed to die with dignity, but who we are keeping alive for reasons I am unable to discern. Terry over at Counting ... More About: Path
A message from the grave
2007-11-18 04:57:00 Alright. I know that this is bad, but I have to tell this story. Today I was working in the ER. I was on my way to draw a blood gas when the phone rang. I grumbled obscenities as it rang: the damn thing had been driving me nuts all day. “Respiratory.” “Um, hi. Just got a call ... More About: Message , Grave , The G , Mess
I need this.
2007-11-18 02:07:00 By way of Mielikki at First Do No Harm: You know how people talk about their internal filters, stopping them from saying inappropriate things at different times? (Mine is broken, btw). I want to know, why don’t we have a bullshit filter? One that would weed out all the crap we hear every day, and only allow ...
Huh
2007-11-17 06:56:00 Which Discworld Character are you like (with pics) created with QuizFarm.com You scored as The LibrarianYouâ??re the Librarian! Once a wizard, now an Orang-utan (due to an unfortunate magical accident), you refuse to be turned back for a few reasons: In this form, itâ??s easier to reach the shelves and hold more books; having the strength of ...
Huh
2007-11-17 05:21:00 Which Discworld Character are you like (with pics) created with QuizFarm.com You scored as The LibrarianYouâ??re the Librarian! Once a wizard, now an Orang-utan (due to an unfortunate magical accident), you refuse to be turned back for a few reasons: In this form, itâ??s easier to reach the shelves and hold more books; having the strength of ...
Rule Number One: Gomers Don?t Die
2007-11-15 07:35:00 This is part one of my series exploring the Rule s of the House of God. The Rules come from the novel House of God, by Samuel Shem. While some of the content of the novel is a bit dated, much of it is startlingly relevant even thirty years after Shem wrote his masterpiece. Rule Number One ...
A subtle hint
2007-11-15 00:50:00 For some people, subtlety works. For others, the tank approach seems to be a more appropriate strategy. Healthcare seems to attract people for whom subtlety is a lost art, and many of my co-workers are excellent examples of this. I was enjoying some snack crackers (tomato and basil flavor!) at work just yesterday when I ...
Best Report Ever
2007-11-13 03:46:00 Subtitled “The Spectacular Art of Nonchalance.” I stood by the ventilator waiting for my new patient. It was the end of the day, and I was tired and ready to go home, but the OR had called to tell us the patient was coming right now. I checked my watch. Apparently in the Sunny Flats OR, ... More About: Report
From the SICU Queen:
More articles from this author:2007-11-10 18:50:00 I just stumbled across the SICU Queen ’s Blog. She has written an excellent piece about the day that they all smiled when he died: Dear Loving Family Member (GAG), You moron… he suffered for over FIVE months because you refused to follow his wishes and let him die. His body finally gave out… finally… and you have ... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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