Baptized in blood

For those non-RRT's that are reading this, I implore you to attempt to see passed your profession and try to consider what it would be like if you were the only person in the room with your credentials and expected to operate entirely solo.  The only real resource for an RRT is either a pulmonologist, a critical care physician, or a physician very well versed in pulmonology.  I didn't really understand this until working at the place I work.  I am sortof at a disadvantage when I say this though, because I am sure a room full of seasoned nurses and doctors are an amazing resource to the RRT, and a seasoned RRT is just as valuable to them (though the pay-scale would not suggest this).  However in my limited exposure so far, when it comes to pulmonary disease, distress, arrest, intervention and just general maintenance I am rowing the boat alone.  I am asked my opinion on chest x-rays and we have a respiratory driven protocol that pretty much says "whatever the RRT wants, or the CRT wants with the RRT's co-signature" in regard to hygiene and ventilator management.

I had a pretty baptismal day last week.  I had a baby crash 20 minutes after returning from surgery, we had a very familiar episode again where they called ECMO stat, I was the only RRT in the room, managing everything, as the baby begins the most wicked pulmonary hemorrhage on the planet I have to deal with a lot of blood, when the surgeon said "The heart is empty, hurry with the bolus" I wanted to say "If you're looking for it, its all over my hands and arms and all inside the bag-valve".

Immediately following the code (which ended up as a successful ECMO installation with good volumes and saturations (Arterial, %sat, and cerebral ox) and when I left the attending said he predicted the outcome to be a good one) - following the code I was called stat to another one of my patients rooms, where as I am walking in the attending says "we might intubate" and I get the stuff together and then says "lets intubate, right now" so I intubated.  Taped that badboy down, stayed to evaluate all my numbers and make sure he was good.  Then I am called to be "standby" while they did a planned exploration of one of my patients chests at the bedside.

All of these were my assigned patients.  I need to not whine about being "more clinician" because I did not leave the bedside very often all day with these super high acuity patients.

I did all of this 100% alone, I was the sole practitioner, with no one to double-check my decisions.  Even the physician just said "whatever you want to do" insinuating that I am there to worry about the lungs so he doesn't have to.

Respiratory Care week is coming up, are your departments doing anything special for it?