respstudent

Latest Activity

1. Portable Chest XRay protocol

   respstudent replied to icuRNmaggie's topic in MICU

   As a practicing RRT with experience dealing with ARDS patients, this is absolutely NOT appropriate. If the patient was being ventilated in APRV or BiVent, disconnecting the patient from the ventilator should be done only emergently and the tube needs...

2. 8 months as a nurse and I am failing miserably

   respstudent replied to RN119's topic in New Nurse

   If the patient is DNR and CMO/CCO why is the patient getting transfused? I'm not sure the blame for the failure should be entirely yours either. Was the Hb part of routine laboratory work or did it come from an ABG? In the case of the former the lab ...

3. Questions for RRT's (and nurses!)

   respstudent replied to Alliecat78104's topic in General Nursing

   I know this is an old thread, but maybe the response will be useful for the future. 1. The starting pay depends on where you're located and what facility you're employed at. In my area the pay for a hospital based therapist with the RRT credential v...

4. ATT, NCLEX-RN Test day, Pearson Vue trick, Verifying license online?

   respstudent replied to mmel025's topic in NCLEX

   If it makes you feel any better, respiratory therapists have to wait between 1-3 weeks in Florida for the license application to be processed. We do have the comfort of knowing, after an agonizing 5 minute examination experience survey, whether or no...

5. Respiratory Therapists Inserting PICC Lines

   respstudent replied to Asystole RN's topic in Infusion

   My conversation was meant to be humorous, although we did actually have a former director of nursing take a bunch of our procedures and protocols and re-assign them to nursing based on a similar argument. I do agree that RTs doing PICC and central l...

6. Respiratory Therapists Inserting PICC Lines

   respstudent replied to Asystole RN's topic in Infusion

   We already do ABGs and, in many places, arterial lines. We're not actually taught to look at our patients as a walking heart/lung with other stuff attached that we know nothing about. RTs have a pretty good understanding of the cardiovascular system...

7. Respiratory Therapists Inserting PICC Lines

   respstudent replied to Asystole RN's topic in Infusion

   Oh, goodness, no! I didn't become a respiratory therapist because I wanted to insert PICC lines. I wouldn't want PICCs to be the only thing I did, but if a manager made it clear that being credential to work as part of the PICC team meant I got more ...

8. Respiratory Therapists Inserting PICC Lines

   respstudent replied to Asystole RN's topic in Infusion

   I certainly agree that most RRTs have more than enough to do without having IV therapy added to their list of responsibilities; however, if it makes sense for a particular facility to train and credential an RRT to do PICC lines, I don't think it's i...

9. Respiratory Therapists Inserting PICC Lines

   respstudent replied to Asystole RN's topic in Infusion

   Linda, Scope of practice can vary considerably by state and facility. I placed arterial lines while still a student. It is also very common for RRT's to manage IABP and ECMO once trained for the modalities, and placing indwelling arterial line is cer...

10. Respiratory Therapists Inserting PICC Lines

    respstudent replied to Asystole RN's topic in Infusion

    I'm always amazed at the disdain some nurses show for respiratory therapists. Thankfully, it's the kind of disdain I've only ever encountered on the Internet, and it's usually about therapists who want to expand their scope of practice. How dare a lo...

11. PaO2 vs SaO2

    respstudent replied to crazylilkelly's topic in NCLEX

    Paul, ABG = Arterial Blood Gas. You most definitely need arterial blood to get an ABG. You can maybe make some inferences from a venous blood sample if you jab it by mistake. However, it's not a great idea to do that with a critical patient. You cann...