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
The Seven Dwarves of the ICU
2007-11-09 16:57:00 It struck me the other day that my patient load was sort of bizarre. I don’t know if it was the Special Colombian Coffee they were serving in the cafeteria or the exhaustion or the generally disorienting ambience of the ICU, but it suddenly hit me: I was caring for the Seven Dwarves of the ...
The Rules of the House of God
2007-11-09 01:03:00 Like so many other people in the field, I have read and partially memorized the epic novel “House of God” by Samuel Shem. In his novel, Shem (pen-name of a psychiatrist whose real name I’ve forgotten) explores the horrors that modern medicine brings on unwitting patients. His point overall isn’t that medicine is “bad;” it’s ... More About: Rules , The House , The Rules
He?s gonna get an infection
2007-11-08 05:08:00 You hear some interesting things in the hospital. I was making my rounds through the ICU this morning, clipboard in hand, when I heard a commotion from a room. “No! Robert, No! Don’t roll in it–aw, jeez.” A tracheostomy gurgled from behind the curtain and I heard a coarse cough as something thin was barked up ... More About: Infection , Gonna
The Gator Sign
2007-11-05 20:03:00 At risk of disclosing my Cheney-like Undisclosed Location here in the Southeast, I am going to discuss something near my home that I have termed “The Gato r Sign .” The G ator Sign reads, WARNING This path is an active gator crossing area. Stay on path and hold children by the hand. The Gator Sign is posted on a walking path in ...
I guess he lost
2007-11-05 04:45:00 It’s been a long and sad weekend at Sunny Flats. The unit I was assigned to over the weekend handles most of the trauma cases that present to the hospital. For some reason we’ve had a sudden spate of young trauma victims. I’m not usually one to be overly affected by trauma; I may bitch ... More About: Lost , Guess
The Holiday Madness Begins
2007-11-04 01:08:00 Ah, November: that time of the year when things begin to cool off a little bit, and the crisp fall air turns slowly to the chill of winter. Mere minutes after Halloween, stores drag out their overused Santas and Trees and light the world up with Commercial Christmas Joy, which I think totally misses the ... More About: Holiday , The Holiday , Madness
RAGE
2007-11-03 02:22:00 I am not an easily angered person. Today, I almost blew my top at an absolutely infuriating PACU nurse. She treated me like crap, and when I suggested that her patient should stay on the ventilator, she looked me in the eye and ripped the ET tube out. I yelled at her to stop and ... More About: Rage
She?s dead
2007-11-02 03:50:00 I just found out via e-mail that a person I worked with up North died. She was a vibrant, healthy 22-year old who just graduated nursing school. She was very likeable, very fun to work with and very intelligent. She could have gone on to do some awesome things, not in a “change the world ... More About: Dead
My ass is kicked
2007-11-02 01:30:00 Busy, busy day in the ER today. Four suicide-attempt overdoses, all intubated. One who vomited casserole all over, one who was fighting underneath her sedatives, one who was speaking in tongues and one who just laid there staring into oblivion. One elderly man found down in his home, evidently there for several days. He had an abcess ...
If it wasn?t a biohazard it would be perfect for Halloween
2007-10-31 22:20:00 In the course of doing my laundry today, I discovered that one of my new scrub tops has been covered in blood. I don’t know how I missed that yesterday or why nobody said to me “Hey dude your top’s covered in blood,” but I can only assume that it was busy and nobody really ... More About: Perfect , Halloween , Biohazard , Allo
Hopeless Cases
2007-10-31 04:06:00 Some time ago I promised you new features: the hopeless case of the week and the success of the week. These features were part of an effort to create interesting content and explore some of the dichotomies of medicine. But me being me, I forgot all about them until today. Today, working in the ER, ... More About: Hopeless , Cases , Pele
Ativan Nebs: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
2007-10-28 18:58:00 Ativan is one of my favorite drugs for patients to be taking. A wonderfully potent anxiolytic, it generally has a mellowing effect on jittery or nervous patients. Simply popping an Ativan pill or shooting someone up with the IV form of this drug can make interactions with anxious or agitated patients much, much better–unless ... More About: Time , Idea , Ivan
Dur
2007-10-27 20:52:00 Can’t believe I forgot to link to Codeblog earlier. Stay tuned to RT 101. Tomorrow: an epic argument in favor or ativan nebulizers! More About: Blogroll
I like ?em sedated
2007-10-27 19:20:00 It’s true. I like my patients to be well-sedated. There are some out there who think it’s cruel or unpleasant to sedate patients in the ICU environment, but speaking as someone who knows intimately the depths of the unpleasantness we can inflict on people in the drive to cure them, I think that sedation is ...
Days off
2007-10-26 17:12:00 After working seven out of eight days in a row, I finally have a few days off in which to unwind. There’s an ice-cream social at the hospital to celebrate RT week, so the wife and I might pop in there and score us some free food. Reading through the morning funnies today I came across ... More About: Days
25 grand
2007-10-26 07:11:00 Wow. Apparently I’ve been doing something right, because the blog is approaching 25,000 hits on the ol’ hit counter. I guess I should be fair and remove about 5,000 hits from that for the random Googles (like ASS CPAP or HOW DO I EAT FENTANYL) that land people here by mistake. But 20,000 hits is ... More About: Grand
Quote of the Day:
2007-10-25 05:50:00 Uttered by a friend of mine: “Sometimes I have to shut the office door at lunchtime because I swear like a longshoreman with terminal Tourettes.” Best. Description. Ever. More About: Quote Of The Day , Quote
Loadin? up on the freebies
2007-10-25 02:01:00 As part of the ongoing Respiratory Care Week festivities at Sunny Flats Medical Center, the RT department has been having free lunches sponsored by various people who give us CEU-worthy lunchtime speeches. Even though today was my day off, I went in to hear the speech and get my CEU–and some freebies. You see, the lunch ... More About: Freebies
Thought for the day
2007-10-23 02:39:00 From Jack Handey’s Deep Thought s: Broken promises don’t upset me. I just think, why did they believe me? Today was a decent day at Sunny Flats. You may have noticed that I am working a lot; I am in fact doing a seven-of-eight stretch at the hospital in order to get some time off for personal reasons. ...
What?s with all the dead guys?
2007-10-22 04:53:00 Man. I had to terminally extubate another patient today. This brings my total over the last six weeks to well over half a dozen, somewhere around eight or nine I am guessing. This is far more patients than I terminally extubated even in the year or so leading to my arrival here at Sunny Flats…not ... More About: Dead , Guys
Dayum
2007-10-21 02:36:00 It always amazes me how a combination of socioeconomic status, bad genes and phenomenally poor self-care skills can gang up on someone and kill them. Today I received a new patient from the ER in the unit I was working. I did not get to spend much time with her, but that was fine because (1) ...
Thank You!
2007-10-19 17:22:00 MonkeyGirl has succinctly summed up what I think all of us are feeling at some level. In regard to the typical elderly, demented DNR patients who come to the hospital from hellish nursing homes covered in bedsores and feces because the one nurse/CNA team for 100 patients couldn’t get to them for a week: “It is ... More About: Hank
Airplanes!
2007-10-19 05:47:00 First: I got number three today. I know that my intubation count probably bores you all, but it fascinates me–and what would a blog be without some mindless ego-stroking on the part of the author? The best part about Number Three is that it was totally random. I was walking through the ICU that I ... More About: Airplanes
Sumdood: Reprise
2007-10-18 02:04:00 I was pondering the tales of some of my patients today. More than once here I have heard tell of home-health medical supplies (nebulizers, CPAP machines) being stolen or “disappearing.” It got me to wondering: why would anybody steal medical supplies? The answer came to me on public radio. I was listening to the morning news ... More About: Reprise
Another Tube
2007-10-17 03:31:00 So I was sitting by the physician’s computer station, using the double-screened glory that is the PACSWEB radiology viewing system to check my e-mail. I sifted through some boring messages, some news, and some intriguing messages before sitting back. I took a deep breath and tried to relax, closing my eyes for a moment and ... More About: Tube
Espanol (and more of the cave)
2007-10-16 04:19:00 First off: welcome to my Spanish-Speaking reader(s)! I’ve been making a slow, start-and-stop effort to learn to habla, but it’s been met with mixed results…so I’m glad that Google can translate my page for multilingual enjoyment. Second, I’d like to re-point out to you all that there’s a new RT blogger in town. Freadom has come ... More About: Espanol , Pano , Cave
The RT Cave
2007-10-15 05:37:00 I’d like to welcome another Respiratory Therapy blogger to the blogroll here at RT 101. Everybody please welcome Freadom, over at the Respiratory Therapy Cave ! Incidentally, what’s with RT offices? The word “Cave” does seem to sum things up pretty well. Most RT offices somehow wind up being nothing more than caves. I’ve worked in an ...
For your consideration
2007-10-13 23:48:00 For your consideration, I present to you today the wonderful tale of the Conductiviy of Drunks over at Atomic Nerds. It is well worth a read, especially for any of you college-age types out there unsure of how best to deal with inebriated fratboys. More About: Consider
Answered
2007-10-12 19:28:00 I’ve often wondered how it is that so much bad information gets disseminated among medical people. A favorite example of mine is the misunderstanding among many medical professionals that albuterol will relieve the symptoms of Congestive Heart Failure. Albuterol doesn’t do anything for CHF: in fact it could conceivably make it worse. Yet it seems ...
Some people actually DO use them!
More articles from this author:2007-10-12 14:44:00 I’m off. Five days in a row. One of my favorite things about flexible scheduling is the opportunity to get lengthy periods of time away from the job, sort of mini-vacations in which one can relax and try to avoid anything related to work. I like my job, but a little escape is nice now ... More About: People , Ally , Some 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
 |
|
 |
