GilaRRT

As others have said, being older is often not a problem. I was nineteen when I started nursing school, but was thirty when I started respiratory school. There are many what some would call nontraditional students entering nursing as a second or third...

April, 2011 is the publish date of the current book. You can go to many places like Amazon to buy the book. Make sure you buy a book that has the cards because the cards will be very helpful.

I completed the RN to BSN programme about a year ago. I had to complete 44 units. Was able to complete 26 units the first term, then completed the final 18 units the second term. It's actually a pretty straight foreword experience. Most of the classe...

The Servo-i, Evita XL and the PB 840 are three of the most common ventilators in the United States. However, you may run into many different types throughout the United States including older types such as the PB 7200. What do you mean by having no u...

No horn tooting here. I happen to have a good appreciation of these particular topics because I am both a respiratory therapist and registered nurse, therefore I think I have something to offer. However, you will not often find me posting on threads ...

My problem with this Oxygen business are nurses who are practicing that truly believe any patient with COPD who receives more than 2 LPM via NC will spontaneously combust as their head pops of and rolls down the hallway. Perhaps not so dramatic, but ...

Yeah, pH is such a complex "doctor" concept. It's not like we are calculating pKa values for carbonic acid or anything exceedingly complex on this thread. I would agree with your point if we were calculating wavefunction solutions or having in-depth ...

Yes, pH change is going to be the primary stimulus.

There exists a very important point that most people do not consider. Carbon dioxide by its self does not really effect breathing. Our primary stimulus to breath is not based on CO2 levels. In fact, pH change is our primary stimulus to breath. Centra...

Pretty harsh comments directed at somebody who is probably ignorant about what we do. I assume many of us are ignorant about what other professionals do in their day to day work. I've even experienced ignorance among different health care providers. ...

Same here. Nothing personal; however, I want a physician directing my care and I want a physician providing my anaesthesia.

Actually, the American Academy of Pediatrics is changing the way NRP will be completed. Everybody will have to do the online component and then have a period of time to find an instructor for skills validation. As a NRP instructor, I recently complet...

Challenge NREMT? I'm an RN, RRT and NREMT-I/85 and I've just been notified by the NREMT that I must take the entire NREMT exam over in addition to taking a transition class just to maintain AEMT credentials. If not, I loose and will be demoted to EMT...

I'm sorry the RT sandbagged on you. I also wanted to clarify that RT's can have misconceptions about RN scope of practice. One thing I see frequently are RT's that believe nurses cannot look at a ventilator. Unfortunately, we are often ignorant about...

Actually, in my area of the country a registered respiratory therapist is a licensed provider with a minimum of an associate degree just like a nurse. The RRT is in fact well within their scope to obtain orders from the physician. Also, the RT is ul...

In my area of the world RT's make respiratory related calls to providers. Nurses can as well, but we are often on the phone changing and clarifying orders or discussing pulmonary related issues. We often notify the patient's nurse of changes or issue...

In charge of vents? Surly your facility has respiratory therapists.

Depends. Your course may have specific requirements and it's best to go to the source and find out exactly what you need. Another option if you are comfortable with math is to CLEP out of the entire course. CLEP testing really saved me a headache bec...

What about paramedics with degrees? EMS is heavily "male dominated" and even in areas where they are "licensed" and have degrees, they are woefully underpaid.

Perhaps, you will learn a lesson from all this. Life isn't always fair by your standards and what some people consider "more responsibility" may differ from your personal definition. You can always apply to be a security guard if the pay is a show st...

How about we focus on taking back nursing from ourselves? Many of our problems are iatrogenic.

This is an anamolus issue. Ketamine generally has a rapid onset of action. One thing to seriously consider is the fact that the medication was not given properly or for some reason did not make it into the patient. A similar situation occurred with a...

Unprofessional actions IMHO. You probably didn't solve anything. However, you very well may have exacerbated the original issue. If you end up having to go to a manager about his behaviour, you may have a difficult time because your behaviour was not...

Identifying potential problems, issues with medications and other appreciating other considerations is good because you can implement knowledge gained into your future practice.

Another agree regarding the atracurium. I am a big fan of fentanyl in patients who are haemodynamically compromised. Also, another good consideration in some septic patients is ketamine. You can have issues with catecholamine depleted patients; ho...