Department of Respiratory Care

About the Bachelor's Degree
Program

Admissions Requirements

Advanced Standing Program

What is an RT?
Career Opportunities

Department Faculty
and Staff

Student Success Story

Continuing Education

Sites of Interest

About the School of
Allied Health Sciences

About UTHSCSA

Student Resources

E-mail:
respiratorycare@uthscsa.edu

UTHSCSA
Dept. of Respiratory Care
7703 Floyd Curl Drive, MSC 6248
San Antonio, TX 78229-3900
Phone: (210) 567-8850

The Profession

Areas of respiratory care include basic care (oxygen, aerosol, and chest physiotherapy), critical care (ventilator management and physiologic monitoring), perinatal and pediatric respiratory care, cardiopulmonary diagnostics, pulmonary laboratory, home care, and pulmonary rehabilitation.

The respiratory therapist sees a diverse group of patients ranging from the newborn and pediatric patients to adults and the elderly. Disease states or conditions often requiring respiratory care include asthma, emphysema, chronic obstructive lung disease, pneumonia, cystic fibrosis, infant respiratory distress syndrome, and conditions brought on by shock, trauma or post-operative surgical complications.

Respiratory therapists are also involved in many specialty areas in the hospital such as newborn labor and delivery, neonatal and pediatric intensive care units, pulmonary function laboratory, sleep laboratory, and adult intensive care units. The respiratory therapist with a baccalaureate degree is prepared to deliver respiratory care in the hospital, home, and alternate care sites.

The respiratory therapist with a baccalaureate degree is an advanced level practitioner and is eligible to sit for the national board exam for entry-level certification, to become registered as an advanced practitioner, and to take specialty examinations in perinatal/pediatrics and pulmonary function technology.

Program Overview

The Program

The bachelor's degree program involves motivation, curiosity, professional fulfillment and personal satisfaction. The work is both hard and rewarding.

Interaction with faculty, therapists, physicians and nurses is essential and is the key to the program. Students engage in seminars, intensive classes and laboratories, and clinical training in hospitals. The result is an outstanding education in respiratory care, but it is more than that. There is a sense of personal growth and a real commitment to serving people.

The overall purpose of the program is to provide a high-quality education that is relevant and professionally sound to meet the respiratory care leadership needs in the health care community. Inherent in this purpose is the goal to prepare respiratory care practitioners who can demonstrate the attitudes, skills and knowledge required to meet the changing needs in the community.

It will be necessary for the respiratory therapist to cooperate with all members of the health care team in identifying and solving the problems that relate to respiratory diseases and disorders of the cardiopulmonary system. The respiratory therapist must be able to think critically, communicate effectively, demonstrate judgment and provide self-direction. It is a primary objective of the program to educate well-qualified, competent respiratory therapists who demonstrate leadership ability.

The Department of Respiratory Care is dedicated to the philosophy and goals of the School and University. The bachelor's degree program is designed to offer the student planned learning experiences and to provide knowledge, skills and attitudes that will culminate in successful employment of the graduate as a respiratory therapist.

The Bachelor of Science degree in Respiratory Care requires a minimum of 150 semester hours of credit for graduation. This is an integrated program, requiring 59 semester hours of program prerequisites and preprofessional requirements at the lower-division level prior to admission to UTHSCSA for the professional phase (22 months) in the junior and senior years. The preprofessional phase requirements may be completed at any regionally accredited college or university. Dedicated to clinical and academic excellence, the professional phase includes over 1000 hours of in-hospital clinical practice. As a leadership program in respiratory care, this course of study aspires to provide graduates with the foundation needed to assume professional leadership roles in clinical practice, clinical specialty areas, research, education and management.