Nurses Vs Respiratory Therapist

Nurses Vs Respiratory Therapist

Hospitals are the same as any other fields full of competition and oppositions between the health care givers. One of the many clashes is between Respiratory Therapists (RT) and Registered Nurses (RN). I know there are nurses who appreciate us RT's and on the other hand, I know there are RN's who think of us as a highly paid nurse's aides or trained monkeys. So what are the differences between us? Who really works harder? So here I go with list of the differences and similarity between RT's and RN's.

Everyone knows what an RN is, but not everyone knows what a RT is. RT's are small stealth units like Special Forces. RNs have been around since practice of Medicine start centuries ago. On the other hand Respiratory Therapist did not exist 50 years ago, which makes it a major advantage toward the Nursing.

You can become an RN in either 2 or 4 years of college as well as the RT's do. However, RT's spends most of their education studying the Respiratory, Cardiac, and Renal system. On the other hand, RN studies a little about many different system. Which make the RT's more specialized on those systems. RTs have to specialize at least in one of major aria for example, Neonate, critical Care, Pulmonary Function Lab, and Sleep Lab. Conversely, RN don't have to specialize unless they want too.

RN's make more money, and more opportunities of different places to work like hospitals, clinics, doctor's offices, jail's, factories, home health, and of course as a school nurse. Nonetheless RT's are under paid and they don't have the same opportunities as RN's have. Yet, RT's mainly work just in hospitals and home health. RN's have a powerful Union that fights for their rights where RT's have nothing to cover their back.

Because the majority of the health care providers are RN's, they reach to very high position within the health care system. That makes it tough to any other Health care provider to have a chance to compete for a bigger chair.

Although, RN's have a bunch of patients on a floor; RT's have a bunch of patients on many floors. So we walk further. As a result, RN's are stuck on a floor so many times they don't really know many people in the rest of the hospital. But, RT's get all over the place, so they know people all over the hospital.

Nobody could argue that RN have a lot or more things to do, and they have to deal with all kind of nasty stuff, for example, cleaning the patients, stabilize the patients, calculate and give the medication, notify the physicians. However the first thing that RN will do when the patient goes downhill is to call the RT.

When things come down to resuscitation RT is one of the first to be called among a team of ICU