The field I wish to pursue is that of respiratory therapy. When I was a child was when my first interest in respiratory therapy was aroused. As a child I was sick a great deal with various lung ailments that required frequent hospitalizations. I would always revel in the fact that how intelligent and courtesy the respiratory therapist were that took care of me. They were so good at what they did and they always made me "feel better." I wanted to be like them. That thought had never deviated since I decided that was what I wanted to do.
             (1)Respiratory therapy is a result of specialization trends of the late 60's in health care. At first referred to as "inhalation therapy", respiratory practitioners did very little. They were initially one the job trainees, trained by nurses, who did medial chores that nurses didn't have time or didn't want to do. This consisted of a lot of the time consuming activities such as setting up oxygen, delivering IPPB's, ultrasonic nebulizers, chest physiotherapy and setting up machinery such as croup tents and ventilators. These technical chores involved no interpretation of the reasoning behind these mechanisms but only how to "monkey" the steps involved in performing them. This "early" practitioner had absolutely no autonomy as they had only technical skills and other employees such as nursing normally surpassed those skills.
             (2)The field of respiratory care has since evolved a great deal. Beginning in the seventies formal respiratory programs were initiated. This formalized training would not only teach an individual the technical aspects of the field but also a moderate amount of the theory behind them. As in most fields, this increase in education was shortly followed by credentialing exams to "certify" the respiratory practitioners. These exams were used to "prove" the skills and information that the practitioners ...