Is it safe going into RT?

april*rn · Mar 6, 2017

Every hospital I have worked at has RTs. Never heard of them being phased out.

Plenty of people start a new career including nursing in their 40s and 50s. I graduated at 40 from nursing school and know many others in my age group who did too.

AceOfHearts<3 · Mar 6, 2017

My facility uses them plenty. I also have a coworker who went back to school for nursing after raising 5 kids. I think you'd be fine in either, but if nursing is really what you want then I personally would try to wait.

Good luck!

Scottishtape · Mar 6, 2017

I feel your pain *hugs*. I met my husband a year after I became an LPN with the plan that I would bridge the following year.

He was active duty.

Which meant, like you know, constant moving. We got orders every year to year and a half. That's how it was for 10 years. And, because of that, I ended up with a lot of false starts to get back to school.

He finally retired and I jumped at the chance to get my RN. It sucks that I had to wait, but I'm glad I did. I'm supposed to graduate the bridge program next month, and couldn't have done it with him deployed or TDY.

I would say wait it out if you can. Nothing would suck more than you settling and then feeling constant regret at work watching the RNs work, knowing that's what you want to be.

I always heard people say military spouses don't sacrifice, but we do, in a big way. I'm sorry you're going through this, but know that it's not impossible.

Good luck!!

RNperdiem, RN · Mar 6, 2017

A couple of things to think about. If you will have trouble balancing school and work if your husband is away, would balancing work and childcare present similar problems after you finish school?

Is the local program you are looking at a community college where you can easily afford tuition, or is it a for profit (expensive) education? Getting educated later in life is great, but avoiding big debt is very important.

RTs are very much in demand around here. I have not heard anything about phasing them out.

Libby1987 · Mar 6, 2017

I would wait until he retires and then settle in where there's a good job market. Going to school and starting a new nursing job will be completely different under your two available options, one will be hell while the other will be close to ideal.

Extra Pickles · Mar 6, 2017

I don't know if it's phased out so much as cut back. Hospitals in my area employ fewer RTs than they used to because they add to the expense of the hospital and RNs CAN do what they do usually in the course of their jobs. That said there are still many RTs around as the main reason for having them in the first place is that RNs usually don't have the time to do routine treatments, they are busy getting buried with patient care in ever-increasing numbers because of hospital cutbacks that include nursing staff too. We just keep getting required to do more with less, pretty standard nowadays I think. For the most part there are enough RTs employed to make it not be a thing to avoid but it will depend on where you want to work as to whether it's easy to get a job or hard, like everything else.

You wouldn't have anyone bat an eye if you were a new grad in your 40's, except of course for the new grads in their 20's who think 40 is old lol!! For hiring managers someone in her 40s is also someone who has some life experience and probably other jobs to her credit so no worries there.

Everline · Mar 6, 2017

I've never heard of respiratory therapists being phased out. Of, course that doesn't mean it's not happening. One thing I will say is that the respiratory therapists I know have told me they love their jobs (very much) but that they wish they had a broader field, like nurses. That is to say, there are many more ways and places to be a nurse than there are to be a respiratory therapist.

If nursing is what you really want to do, you might want to wait and go for it when the time is right. I started and graduated from nursing school when I was over 40 years old and I had some classmates older than me. All of us "older crew" are working just like the young ones, lol. Nursing has many challenges, but I have not found my age to be one of them. I was prepared for the possibility of age discrimination, but never encountered it that I know of.

Try making a list of the pros and cons. That's helped me in the past. Sometimes putting things on paper helps to clear it up.

heinz57 · Mar 6, 2017

RT is not a very flexible profession. It has very limited opportunities because Medicare does not recognize it for professional status. There is always talk of delicensing RT because of this. Many of the RT duties have been given back to nursing due to dwindling reimbursement. This has cut RT departments by at least half in some places. Rural hospitals do not need RT 24/7 and many will just have one to setup or clean the equipment. Look at any major Hospital job board and you will find very few if any openings. RTs have said their department gets over 100 applications for each opening. There are more schools than the demand for RTS.

Be careful of expensive hybrid schools. Their credits might be difficult to transfer. You could also be paying a lot for very little in return since RTs make a lot less than nurses.

Purple_roses · Mar 6, 2017

My hospital has a plethora â€‹of RTs.

Angry LPN · Mar 6, 2017

If you mean respiratory therapist by RT, that is how I started out. There was a 2 year waiting list to get into the local LPN school and I didn't want to be a substitute teacher another day (42 bucks a day after taxes, no benefits, and because I didn't know somebody and the schools here prcactice raampant nepotism, my 4 years of slaving away, writing azzling research papers, getting good grades was all for nothing and te thousands of dollars i saved up working in a warehouse and as a guard were wasted). I completed my associate's in resiratory therapy and then went right into LPN school. I can tell you this for a fact. There is no way nurses will ever phase out respiratory therapists and there are 2 main reasons why. First and foremost, the nurses already have too much work to do, they are too overwhelmed to start doing oxygen rounds, breathing treatments, drawing ABGs, and most importantly, ventilator checks and maintenance. Which brings me to my second point. The subject matter I had to learn in respiratory school was way more complicated than anything in nursing school. It was way more scientific. Gas laws, pressures, tidal volume. PEEP rates, etc. A person that has a shallow tube that puts oxygen in their lungs through a narrow opening in their throat from a mechanical ventilator had been have somebody well trained and experienced taking care of them and monitoring them closely. Because of this insane, broken, greedy healthcare system, the government and insurance companies of course don't want to pay and so create a mountain of frivolous. redundant, and in my opinion, totally unnecessary paperwork because the boneheads think they can measure the quality of care through more paperwork. Just when you think they can't possibly come up with more paperwork, they manage to. That's why you see well intended nurses who would rather be on the floor doing what really helps the patients, hands on care. Instead, their hands are tied clippety clipping all this never ending charting on the computer. Because they are overwhelmed with red tape, they will never have time to do the job of the respiratory department and they lack the training to do their work. So no, they will never phase out RT. Some hospitals may try and dump off some of their work on already tortured and over burdened nurses so they can save money by not hiring as many RTs, but over time the turn over rate and having to train new nurses as the other ones get burned out and quit after months or years of constant stress, never getting to go on a break, having to stay over hours off the clock to get the work done. The sadists that run these for profit places will realize it's cost effective to keep their RTs and not dump their work off on overwhelmed nurses. That is my take, I am an RRT and an LPN.

navywife16 · Mar 6, 2017

Thank you all for your replies, support, and advice. You all gave me much to think about.