Respiratory Therapist VS Nursing

Well the thing is that there is a nurse actually taking care of those patients that the respiratory therapist is assisting, so the nurses don't have easy patients, they have all the patients. You need to shadow both these professions, because I can see you are getting really confused about how things go in the hosptial!!

Best wishes

Edited to add, sorry if this seemed short,I was at work and in a hurry.

What I meat to say:

RT is never completely responsible for a patient alone. Even for difficult intubations etc, there is also often a Physician who can also do the intubation. Nurses take care of patients with respiratory issues, and take care of patients that die and are very ill. Nurses do not in any way get "All the easy patients"
Although your family is in health care, I think you have gotten some confusion on how things run, and shadowing each of these professions will probably clear up the confusion going on here.

RT's do not "get" patients, they assist with patients, and while they are responsible for the patient, the nurse is the on going provider of care and will be responsible for anything the RT does. (Assessing if new vent settings are going along ok, checking on the ABG result, etc etc etc.) The RT does not have a patient seperate from a nurse.

Edited one more time: I wanted to say of course the RT is operating on their own license, the nurse is not responsible for the RT's actions in the way the nurse is responsible for delegation to CNA's. But as the on-going care provider to the patient, the nurse must understand and further evaluate the actions taken by the RT for effectiveness. (ie RT gives a neb, and the nurse will re-evaluate the breath sounds and pulse Ox and WOB later. RT will probably also assess that, but the Nurse, having the patient, will need to know this info.
Boy I'm not being too clear today.

Airis - does this information help? As you can see our members have varied experiences to share. Good luck on your career decisions.

It depends on where you work. Yes I get exposed to some really scary stuff, but I'm at less risk for a needle stick. Depends on what scares you more: inhaled disease, or stuck with scarey needle. I don't think we get harder patients or easier patients. we all get the hard ones, just in different ways.

Wow, This really chaps my cheeks..... Since when did the idea get out that nurses had the easiest pts? Like a previous poster put it....we have all the patients. The RT may be there only 15 minutes to do a treatment, but the RN is there for 12 hours caring for the sickest patients. We do meds, iv's, dressings, assessments, run codes, accept trauma patients. As an RT you do what you need to and leave. Nurses are there all the time. Sorry if I sound upset.. I'm not. It just makes me mad when horribly wrong info like this gets out.

I also hope to clear up something. RN's don't always get the "easiest" patients and the RT's don't always get the hardest patients. As an RT, I sometimes get the less sick patients in my assignment, as in the floor patients. But sometimes get the hardest patients, as in the ICU. It's similar with nursing. Somedays you get easier patients and sometines you get the harder patients. Even floor patients can be difficult. Trachs, CP, spinal fusions, g-tubes, etc.

There are days that a vent patient is easier than a 2year old getting just a breathing treatment, at least they don't fight and run all over the room!

this website may help give you some more info on the field of Respiratory Care: http://www.aarc.org/

OMG. Whoever told you this has a somewhat lopsided view of the whole situation. It's not about who has how many or what kind of patients. Are you under the impression that RTs are the primary caregiver of the "sickest" patients? And nurses take care of the easy ones?

OK. I work in ICU. I may be assigned 2 patients. Both are critically ill, on vents (breathing machines). I assume FULL responsibility for ALL aspects of care for those patients. I am responsible for administering meds, treatments other than respiratory, labs, procedures, calling docs, titrating IV drugs, monitoring and treating changes, and recording the whole process.

Every couple of hours or so, someone from the RT department comes into my room, writes down some numbers from the vent, adds some medication to a nebulizer, and hooks it up the the pt. Then they leave. Sometimes they document the treatment in the chart. They might do this same thing for every patient in the ICU. Then they'll go upstairs and give treatments to the patients on the floors. Then they'll start the whole process over again.

During a code, the RT bags the patient (squeezes the breathing bag). Nursing does everything else. We get the patient hooked up to the vent, and the RT leaves. I take care of the rest.

So basically what I'm saying is that RT and nursing have totally different jobs and responsibilities. As a nurse, I am responsible for EVERYTHING that is going on with the patient. The RT manages the vent. That's pretty much it. Not that their job is not important, or critical to the welfare of the patient. An experienced and knowledgeable RT is an invaluable resource. They just have a totally different job, focused specifically on the respiratory system. Hosestly, if I had it to do over again, I'd be an RT. Maybe I'm just in a bad mood tonight.

I think the above posters did a great job of explaining that nurses are the primary caregivers of ALL hospital patients, taking care of almost everything they need, while respiratory is responsible for certain things with these patients. They are both very hard jobs, and both deal with many very sick people. There are just different responsibilites, that's all. Basically, if you want to move around a lot and treat a lot of patients every night, plus are interested in the whole respiratory system - go for the RT. If you want to care for just a few patients at a time, but be there with them all shift, handling all their needs besides respiratory, go for the RN. Definitely find out if there's a way to shadow both positions before you get too much further in your schooling so you can see which is a better fit for you. Even though there are plenty of medical professionals in your family, I think it's important that you see for yourself what is out there and not get all your information second hand.

Just wanted to note that I've never personally see a nurse go back to school to be an RT, but I've seen quite a few RTs go back and get their RNs. They all had different reasons. For one thing, the pay is usually more for RNs than RTs. For another, there is more flexibility with nursing - more units to work on, outpatient, home care, etc. - plus hospitals employ more nurses than any other kind of employee so there are so many more choices out there. Lastly, one nurse decided to do nursing because she just felt like she wasn't "doing enough" just doing her work as an RT - she said she wanted to care for the total patient, not just the lungs, she said.

This is true. RN's usually make at least $10,000 more a year, on average, than RT's.