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 As a 45-year-old mother of two, Lori Thacker, CPhT, RRT, is not your typical respiratory therapy student. After five years as a pharmacy technician, Thacker traded in her lab coat and pill counter for the green scrubs and shiny stethoscope of a respiratory newbie.
Like countless others, she wanted a career with room for advancement that would also provide stability in these difficult economic times.
Despite an imminent nationwide recession, the health care industry grew by 372,000 jobs last year - in the face of 525,000 jobs lost nationwide.1 By 2016, employment of respiratory therapists is expected to grow by 19 percent.2
Considering those numbers, a profession in respiratory care seemed the natural choice to Thacker. "It's a very vital position," said the former student of the Community College of Baltimore County in Maryland.
"It's not brain surgery, but if you're not breathing, you're not doing much else." Thacker landed an RT job with her former employer, Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Bel-Air, Md., a few months before earning her diploma.
She is one of more than 35,000 students expected to enter the profession this year by completing one of the National Board for Respiratory Care's five credentialing exams. Applicants for the exams have seen a strong increase in recent years.
Gaining attention
While respiratory care's presence is growing among the 200 allied health care professions that compose an estimated 60 percent of the health care workforce, the field remains much smaller than professions like nursing and physical therapy, and it receives less attention from policy makers and students.
"Respiratory therapists are part of the hidden health care workforce," explained Susan Chapman, PhD, RN, who has studied respiratory care in her role as the director of Allied Health Workforce Studies at University of California - San Francisco Center for Health Professions. That oversight means comparatively less funding for training programs and fewer new clinicians entering the profession.
Educators like Gwen Jones want to change that perception. "We know a lot of students who declare nursing as their major just won't get into the program," said Jones, a nursing case manager at the Community College of Baltimore County. "(We) try to get the students to think about all the other allied health professions."
When James Lee first began his schooling at the Community College of Baltimore County, he languished for two years while waiting for a seat in the nursing program, held idle by limited class size. It was not until a former classmate graduated from respiratory care that he even heard about the career.
Once Lee talked with the program director about the broad opportunities available, including teaching, travel, and specialty patient care, he was sold.
"I think a lot of new students aren't aware that respiratory therapy offers a broad field of education and training," said Lee.
Recruiting students isn't the only challenge faced by the field. For respiratory therapy to meet the manpower needs of this country, they will need to have to turn out larger classes of respiratory therapists. That means schools will need more respiratory therapy faculty.
Even though several master's degree programs have sprouted up across the country to prepare RTs at the educational level required to teach respiratory care, the lower salaries offered in education compared to clinical work remain a roadblock.4 While distance learning could help alleviate shortages in didactic educators, program directors also frequently report not having enough clinical spots for the training practicum.4
References
1. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Employment Situation: December 2008. Industry Payroll Employment (Establishment Survey Data). Washington, D.C: Bureau of Labor Statistics; 2009 Jan. Available from: www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_01092009.htm.
2. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2008-09 Edition: Respiratory Therapists. Washington, DC: Bureau of Labor Statistics; 2007 April. Available from: www.bls.gov/oco/ocos084.htm.
3. Willis B. Surging U.S. unemployment rate puts pressure on Obama (Update2). Bloomberg.com. 2009 Mar. 9.
4. Lok V, Dower C. Respiratory Care Practitioners and Imaging Technology in California: Education's Response to Workforce Shortages. San Francisco: The Center for the Health Professions, University of California, San Francisco. 2008 Oct.
Contact Kristen Ziegler at kziegler@advanceweb.com.
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