Television’s Joe Friday, in the late 1960s television show “Dragnet,” described police work as “a glamorless, thankless job that’s got to be done.” He could just as easily have been discussing the life of your average respiratory therapist. In hospitals all across the country when someone needs assistance breathing, whether it be in the form of treatments or extreme assistance with a mechanical ventilator, it’s the respiratory therapist that comes running. Literally. When you have four minutes before brain damage sets in, you need to get there quickly. You run!

Your average respiratory therapist in an average hospital has a lot in common with police officers too. They’ve been bled on, spit on, coughed on, sneezed on, and yes, urinated and defecated on while doing their job. They’ve worked 12- and 16-hour shifts, eating hospital cafeteria food, usually gobbled in 10-minute breaks between emergencies. They’ve walked an average of two miles a day while doing their job and they’ve run between the ICU, Emergency Room, and patient care floors trying to take care of far more patients than they can reasonably handle. This, of course, is due to the fact that hospitals have had to cut staff because Medicare pays so poorly. In spite of the fact that many could make a higher hourly wage as a welder or selling insurance, they continue to toil away in the hospital corridors because deep down these folks love patient care. They love the feeling they get when patients get well and go home.