Where did the time go?

By Caroline Spoth posted 07-21-2010 11:24

Like

Back in the old days I went to RT school at Indiana University. We had no knowledge of computers, they did not enter into our daily lives. Now I am a Department Director and find myself responsible for computers of all kinds and with many different purposes. All of our equipment is computer based, we chart in an EMR, we bar code meds and patients: all of our departments testing can be read by physicians remotely......by computer. I just got off of our departments EKG Management System and thought I am a dinosaur. I remember vents with hot plates for humidity, MA1's with external peep systems and reusable vent circuits. I look back fondly on the days of jerry rigging (sp?) equipment to fit our needs because no one had mass produced everything imaginable yet. Somehow I think we have lost a little bit of the ART that was part of being an RT. Time marches on, the wrinkles get deeper, the MD's get younger (ugh) and the computers seem to be procreating at break neck speed. I am becoming obsolete.

3 comments

83 views

Permalink

Comments

Michael Nibert

07-25-2010 23:04

When I started in 1971 as an IT (Inhalation Therapist aka O2 Boy) we gave no SVN's! All IPPB were administered with a PB TV2P attached to an H oxygen cylinder. You had to be a male to be hired because you drug 2 tanks around all day with the TV2P attached and was quite a challenge!So as the Statler Brothers sang "Do we remember these?"---------

William Baker

07-23-2010 19:50

We ain't seen noth'n yet! Its only the begining. I'm seeing some amazing inventions on the trac.. there is still lots of stuff left to improve and invent. I'm still using a role of tape to make it the way I need it right now. Did it last week, changed a "Full Face PAP Mask" into a positive pressure mask, added an exhalation valve, hooked it to the circuit and vent.. yea man.. PEEP + Pressure Support on a Vent for Deluxe BiPAP with fine Fi02 and flow control. Worked great! Built this with a one hour, we need this 'right now' - use it now demand - at the patients home on 100% FiO2 for a while. He's off and kicking his way to the breakfast table in the morning! Keep'n a fresh roll of tape in my gaget bag. Don't ya just love it when a plan comes together and works like that...

Mary Barrows

07-21-2010 15:43

Ah yes... the good old days. I remember being warned when I was a student at Hartford Hospital (in CT) that one of the "pranks" they would pull on the students was to send them to the lab for a jar of surfactant. When I first started working, we would ventilate patients on BIRD IPPB machines with a blender and a Monahan alarm, but the really sick patient would get the OHIO 560!

Blogs