By Robert L. Pela | Phoenix New Times
“People don’t really know what we do,” she said of RTs. “We work right alongside doctors and nurses, but we’re mostly known for giving breathing treatments to asthmatics. We do everything from going into a delivery room to administer oxygen, to being in the trauma bay helping install an arterial bloodline or in the ER putting in a breathing tube. We’re figuring out the stress on a patient’s lungs and what to do about it. I liken what I do to sitting behind the controls of an airplane during its flight.”
Being an ICU-registered respiratory therapist during the COVID-19 pandemic means working elbow-to-elbow, Funez said, with doctors and nurses who are keeping sick people alive. As the number of infected patients grows, it also means working longer hours in more than one hospital, although she couldn’t say which ones.
