Frustrations of Advancing up the chain in Respiratory.

Respiratory Therapy is a great and rewarding career, you get to help people daily, see them improve and unfortunately see their health deteriorate also, but that's the nature of the game in a health care field.  RT's get to move around the hospital getting to know many areas of the hospital and you're not stuck in a cubicle anywhere.  Unfortunately I do see a downside to this career, and that's room for advancement.

I've been a RT for 20 years now and have been looking for opportunities to advance and move up the so called "Chain of Command" and get into the management side of healthcare, and the problem is there is not a lot of room for RT's to move up, really the only spot is the head of the RT department or maybe if you're in a bigger hospital a shift leader position.  Nursing on the other hand can move into management in many different area's of a hospital, for instance my department just went through 2 years of having our Operations Leader who is a RN, not a RT which is was for decades.  Fortunately recently we went back to having a RT as a Operations Leader.

RT's who are looking to move up in management have to look around outside of the hospital unless a opening comes up in your department because it seems people who get into RT management like to stay there because of the lack of opportunities for positions in management in the RT field.  I've known RT's who have moved a few states over just to take a management position over a RT department, or just moving to another hospital when they noticed something opened up.

So if you're looking for move up in the chain, a lot of times it's not easy and you either get lucky and something opens up in your department, otherwise you basically have to look outside of where you work, or get a degree and something else.

Drive On RT's.