Respiratory Therapist VS Nursing

Could you have my management order me up some of those easy patients, b/c really, I could use an easy team!

All kidding aside, and not trying to sound snotty, but who do you think takes care of those dying patients with RT? The nurses. Nurses are responsible for any crisis situations with a patient, if RT gets involved, you can be damn sure that unless it's something like someone throwing a clot, I've been in that room for an extensive period of time beforehand. And I promise you that trying to juggle stat orders for Mrs. Jones who just went into afib w/RVR, for Mr. Smith who just desatted into the 70's for no particularly obvious reason, all while hanging stat blood on Ms. Doe who just started exploding straight blood out of her rectum is not easy.

Bottom line is that both professions are damn difficult, and if you're not willing to come home from work physically and emotionally exhausted at the end of each shift, neither one is for you.

Sorry if my post comes across snippy...it's hard to convey a joking tone in type! I'm glad that you're coming here for more information, and am taking into account that your statements are probably based on the bias of others and not knowing the inner workings of healthcare facilities.

Hello all, I’m also currently in the process of finishing my pre-reqs for nursing school but have always been interested in respiratory therapy. Now the money is really not an issue for me at all but I would really like to know as of today what the starting salaries are looking like for new graduates for respiratory therapists. I know what salary.com has as the “average” but I would like to know what new grads are really being offered.

Also in larger hospitals, is it hard to get overtime as a respiratory therapist? How much overtime can one work as a respiratory therapist, or is it really limited?

Do respiratory therapists also get shift, nights, and weekend differentials? I’m guessing they do.

I live in Houston, TX so anyone with info on this side of the country is especially appreciated. I welcome info on any part of the country as well.

As always any answer to my questions is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Hello all, I’m also currently in the process of finishing my pre-reqs for nursing school but have always been interested in respiratory therapy. Now the money is really not an issue for me at all but I would really like to know as of today what the starting salaries are looking like for new graduates for respiratory therapists. I know what salary.com has as the “average” but I would like to know what new grads are really being offered.

Also in larger hospitals, is it hard to get overtime as a respiratory therapist? How much overtime can one work as a respiratory therapist, or is it really limited?

Do respiratory therapists also get shift, nights, and weekend differentials? I’m guessing they do.

I live in Houston, TX so anyone with info on this side of the country is especially appreciated. I welcome info on any part of the country as well.

As always any answer to my questions is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

The respiratroy therapists I've worked with over the years taught me a great deal and helped develop my interest in Repiratory Nursing. Worked 10 yrs on Telemetry Resp Care unit and specialized in care vent dependent patients in homecare---info that's helped me 25 yrs later as Central intake Manager responsible for setting up home care services.


From Dept of Labor:

• Respiratory Therapists

• Registered Nurses

so, i'll keep it as short as i can, i mean, its simply my opinion... you are comparing apples and oranges, and will never get a honest answer, as each side will claim superiority...

RT for 8 years, majority critical care and trauma at large facilities, and i know, without a doubt, there is no RN who can begin to manage a ventilator, understand settings and make appropriate changes as well as i can, period. regular vent, HFOV, Jet vent, NO, critical care RN's have a basic grasp, but thats it... in the same breath, i couldnt run an IV pump and calcuate drug dosages to save my life... i knew how once, but never used it, now its gone...

now, could an RN learn to be competent at ventilator management, absolutely... could i learn drug dosages and calculations and run pumps.. with out question... its really not a matter of who is better, simply different educations... RT's spend years studying what nursing may cover in a few weeks, whereas nursing may spend a whole semester on a subject that i was taught for a single class day because it wasnt relevant to what i do...

daily RT activity varies wildly depending on the type of facility you work at... go to a small, band aid station hospital, and you will hump nebs all day, every day, and probably be less respected for all your hard work and running around... work in large, teaching facilities, and become very experienced, and it is completely different... i typically have a unit with 10-12 icu beds, and thats all my assignment consists off... if there arent many vented patients, sure, im slow... but i help out other areas... just as if the nurses have stable patients, they are slow as well... and out of respect, if they ask me to help roll/turn a patient, im game, im not too big for it... i simply dont wipe butt because poop-vomit-urine are the reasons i didnt go to RN school... doesnt make me want to vomit, just not something i care to deal with, and wont...

so much for keeping it short...

delete post, chart graphics won't post

JPRAKES....You Rock!

I'm not sure how different the role is in the US, but in Canada the sky's the limit for RRTs. Like [COLOR=green! important][COLOR=green! important]nurses[/color][/color] there are multiple options away from the bedside including research, sales, education, pharmaceutical, etc. Salaries here are higher for starting RTs than they are for starting nurses, with the ceiling being the same for bedside. Starting for an RT in Toronto is $31/hr (RN around $24/hr) with top for bedside RN and RT just below $40/hr at 6 years. It can go higher for both in management positions...there are RRTs who are mangers, leaders, educators and even CEOs. With overtime and other opportunities many RTs make >$100K/year. My track was 3 years bedside, 2.5 years in clinical research and now I'm an educator in the hospital and at a school...6 years and have salary of $80k, Mon-Fri and love the work. It's busy, but not exhausting.

As for the RT job, like [COLOR=green! important][COLOR=green! important]nursing[/color][/color] the role depends where you work. If you work in [COLOR=green! important][COLOR=green! important]rehab[/color][/color] or a clinic your role will be different than that of an RT working in a busy ICU. We do all the usual stuff, assessments, inhalations, spirometry, bloodwork, chest physio, suctioning, etc. We also intubate, put in art lines, and some put in chest tubes with extra training. Here our RTs manage extremely complicated cardiac defects in terms of invasive and non-invasive ventilation, oscillation, jet-ventilation, nitric oxide, etc, and some have completed additional training to run ECMO (think bedside heart-lung bypass). In Canada we have RTs that complete additional training in anaesthesia to manage non-complex surgical cases (eye, hands, etc). The group works autonomously under the supervision of an anaesthetist. I have travelled extensively for work (Mexico, all over the US), presented at conferences and the like. This is not atypical for motivated RTs who get involved. Basically, your [COLOR=green! important][COLOR=green! important]career [COLOR=green! important]path[/color][/color][/color] depends on where you work and how you get involved. If you want career progression, look for a large centre with good resources.

Like nurses, RT workload depends on the patient population. Some are more demanding than others. Working nights adds another layer of challenge to both, but there are day jobs out there. I chose RT over RN because I liked being able to move around and not be tied to a single patient for most of my shift. I like the opportunity to help stabilize a trauma patient in ER, then head upstairs to teach a family about home ventilation, then admit a patient in the ICU, run to code blue to do compressions and intubate, and on an on. It's not like that day in day out, but overall there is alot of variety. Like others had mentioned, I'd rather deal with respiratory secretions than poop, blood or vomit on a regular basis (I had jobs doing enemas and manual disimpaction). Either way, if you don't like poop or secretions there are positions for RN and RT that get you away.

It is a challenging job that requires people skills and intelligence. Although we are smaller in number, this fact with the aging population only increases our opportunities for the future. The interprofessional collaborative push currently sweeping healthcare is also opening many doors. Managers are looking outside the realm of nursing for a different perspective. Like other professions, grad school is your best bet to move up. If bedside is where you'd like to stay, nursing and RT are basically the same...just a different set of variables and equipment that you're dealing with. Although a lot of nurses think we only know about the lungs, there's way more to RT than that. Everything in the body is connected, so we deal with any pathophysiology that leads to cardiorespiratory compromise, be it hepatic, renal, cardiac, neural, etc. We need to know about all of it to do our job effectively.

In the end, workload depends where you are but appear to be basically the same. Responsibilites are the same...you both perform CPR when needed and a responsibility doesn't get any higher than that. We both have the same goals...patient improvement and we must work together closely to ensure this goal is achieved.

This is so helpful. I am currently taking pre-reqs for ADN but I am finding myself strongly leaning to the RT program. I wish there was a site as great as this one for RT's. Also, in my barbaric research of RT, I am finding more variety in this field that what alot of people are saying. Such as NPS, C-AE, PFT, as well as a few job postings on my local hospital site for jobs such as cardiology specialist where the qualifications are either RN or RRT with several years experience in your field in an intensive care unit. The more I am finding diversity in this field, the more excited I am about RT vs RN. I hope to be able to shadow a couple of RTs in the next few weeks. Hopefully, after that, I will be able to make up my mind for sure. Thank you guys for all your info!!

I am a Respiratory Therapy student in my second semester. We are already going to clinicals, and there are certain areas that I enjoy more than others. I enjoy the CICU over the ICU, but one thing I would like to bring to light, obviously, is the nursing-rt "conflict." There are so many people who slam nurses for the way they treat RTs, and I have not experienced a bad nurse yet. I am sure the time will come, though, but we should understand that all jobs in a hospital or clinic are important. From the hospital management to the people who clean the rooms. We all need each other, and we should all help one another. The primary goal is to treat and help the patient - and anyone going into a health field thinking he/she is going to do that on their own should get out immediately. It's a team effort. There should not be some big debate over which is better, both RTs and nurses are important in the health care field. I went into this thinking I was going to see a bunch of RNs being rude and snotty, but the truth is that I have a great deal of respect for them and what they do after going to clinicals. Not all nurses are bad and you can't label them as such over one bad experience. I am enjoying RT classes right now, and I hope that I can make it... it seems very hard, it's just a lot of information to take in. I hope to one day to specialize in the Neonatal/Pediatric branch of RT. Also, the pay is excellent in almost any health care field, but if that is your only concern, you should also leave. I think that's the problem with a lot of our health care today: too many smart people going into health care who care more for money than for the well-being of another person.