A Resident calls me and says "Hey, so I have this kiddo in room 8 who sounds pretty bad, could you take a listen and see what you think? If you agree we can probably start him on a continuous albuterol or something. I don't know if you can but the Mom also asked if you could look at her home nebulizer because it wasn't working earlier"
I say "Yeah, I will go ahead and take the stuff in there for the albuterol neb. I don't know if I can help with the home nebulizer, thats really something she needs to ask her pharmacist or home-supply company about"
He replies "Yeah, I figured, but maybe its something simple"
"Okay, Ill be right over there"
I go over, this kid is having such a hard time I give him almost a max-respiratory-distress score, start the continuous nebulizer and then look at the home nebulizer machine.
I plug everything in, put some normal saline in and it immediately begins misting.
Mom says "Wow! I didn't know there was a button on the side to turn it on!"
I handle the situation gracefully and full of tact and then go talk to the resident about positive pressure for the kiddo and let him know I fixed the home nebulizer.
A blog about Respiratory Care by a Respiratory Therapist
Meconium?
I have been reading some other blogs and I like their short-post technique. I feel like maybe I won't have this urge to write something instructive or educational or big and long and boring if I copy them. So I am.
I get called to a code-blue in labor and delivery the other night. I am hauling balls into the room with a nurse and there is a non-responsive baby just hanging out in the isolette all alone. The L&D nurses are with mom and dad and the midwife or OB or whoever is looking at us bust in.
We immediately begin resuscitation, I bag and then suction and subsequently intubate.
The Neonatology Attending is not just an attending, he is a professor, not associate or assistant professor but senior Professor of Neonatology.
He walks in during the intubation, gets like an inch from my face and says in a very thick Indian accent
"This is weird right?, This is not normal?"
He moves away and I don't respond because I know him, I know its rhetorical, and I am sort-of busy.
We throw the baby into a transport isolette and we rocket off to the NICU.
We get to the NICU, which is only down the hall a bit, and I have a nurse bag while I hook up a ventilator.
When setting my ventilator settings the Attending asks me what I am setting, and just nods at me. I draw a gas and another RT takes it to the lab to run it. The other RT said the Attending followed her to the lab and asked why it was taking so long to run the gas about every 5 seconds, while a countdown was on the screen.
The Attending returns with the RT, who hands me a copy of the gas and I say to the nurses and doctors "7.18/72/22/base -11".
The Attending immediately starts reading the numbers again
"SEVEN ONE EIGHT, SEVENTY TWO... IS NO ONE LISTENING? NO ONE CARES? NO ONE CARES ABOUT THIS BABY? NO ONE CARES."
After being scolded by the Charge Nurse, (and there are not many people more intimidating than a Hardcore NICU Charge Nurse) he apologized and offered to get us all sandwiches and then laughed like buying us sandwiches is some sort of inside joke that he forgot we weren't a part of.
For the rest of the night, "This is weird right? This is not normal" became our slogan.
I get called to a code-blue in labor and delivery the other night. I am hauling balls into the room with a nurse and there is a non-responsive baby just hanging out in the isolette all alone. The L&D nurses are with mom and dad and the midwife or OB or whoever is looking at us bust in.
We immediately begin resuscitation, I bag and then suction and subsequently intubate.
The Neonatology Attending is not just an attending, he is a professor, not associate or assistant professor but senior Professor of Neonatology.
He walks in during the intubation, gets like an inch from my face and says in a very thick Indian accent
"This is weird right?, This is not normal?"
He moves away and I don't respond because I know him, I know its rhetorical, and I am sort-of busy.
We throw the baby into a transport isolette and we rocket off to the NICU.
We get to the NICU, which is only down the hall a bit, and I have a nurse bag while I hook up a ventilator.
When setting my ventilator settings the Attending asks me what I am setting, and just nods at me. I draw a gas and another RT takes it to the lab to run it. The other RT said the Attending followed her to the lab and asked why it was taking so long to run the gas about every 5 seconds, while a countdown was on the screen.
The Attending returns with the RT, who hands me a copy of the gas and I say to the nurses and doctors "7.18/72/22/base -11".
The Attending immediately starts reading the numbers again
"SEVEN ONE EIGHT, SEVENTY TWO... IS NO ONE LISTENING? NO ONE CARES? NO ONE CARES ABOUT THIS BABY? NO ONE CARES."
After being scolded by the Charge Nurse, (and there are not many people more intimidating than a Hardcore NICU Charge Nurse) he apologized and offered to get us all sandwiches and then laughed like buying us sandwiches is some sort of inside joke that he forgot we weren't a part of.
For the rest of the night, "This is weird right? This is not normal" became our slogan.
Interviewing tips
I have been tasked with helping run a peer interview team for the least few weeks.
I have never interviewed anyone professionally, though I do admit I have been the interviewee 50-100 times for various volunteer agencies, jobs and for school; so I have some experience in being in the other seat.
This experience may cause my advice to not be the most normal advice you typically get in a "column" or an article, but I think my perspective after interviewing around 30 candidates will help out.
I have never interviewed anyone professionally, though I do admit I have been the interviewee 50-100 times for various volunteer agencies, jobs and for school; so I have some experience in being in the other seat.
This experience may cause my advice to not be the most normal advice you typically get in a "column" or an article, but I think my perspective after interviewing around 30 candidates will help out.
Tips that will absolutely help:
- Make sure your resume and application have no type-o's
- Do not use the Microsoft Word Resume Template, everyone does.
- After the interview, send a followup Thank You email to everyone you interviewed with.
- Dress in business formal (This means a suit for men, formal wear with closed toe shoes for women)
- Understand the interview you're in and try to answer questions for the interview, an interview with a hiring manager is about you being psychologically stable and not a murderer or a thief. An interview with an educator is if you're able to be taught. An interview with a peer-interview-team is to see if you are a narcissist and willing to throw yourself under the bus instead of everyone else.
Resume specific tips:
- Include a list of your skills and rate them on "Entry" "Intermediate" or "Expert" level. Entry is okay on everything, mostly the interviewer will be impressed you outlined a list of skills.
- Do not include "REFERENCES UPON REQUEST" anywhere on the resume.
- An "OBJECTIVE" paragraph is not necessary.
An example outline for a resume for a Respiratory Therapist:
- [Name]
- [Education]
- [Experience]
- [Clinical experience if a new graduate]
- [Certifications and Licenses, with active and expired dates and numbers]
- [Skills and proficiency]
- Other notes: save in PDF format and don't worry if its 2-3 pages long, its expected in healthcare to have a huge resume.
An example process
- Application to job
- Followup e-mail and phone call to "touch base"
- Interview
- Followup thank you e-mail.
- 7 day followup phone or e-mail
- 14 day e-mail
- Upon a bad-news letter, e-mail with a "thank you for your time and please keep me in mind e-mail"
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