The respiratory therapy cave

I am an inactive registered respiratory therapist who practiced respiratory care for two decades and taught it in college for three years before being nudged into at least partial retirement by the Great Recession of 2008.  I lost two really good part-time RT jobs in the same week of November, 2008.  After applying for 65 positions, having done virtually everything therapists do in hospitals, and getting 4 interviews, and being offered 1 of them, for vacation fill-in only, I decided to let it lay a while.

I was wondering if anyone has written a serious book-length history of respiratory therapy.  Before I found any such thing, I found the only solidly good blog on respiratory therapy that I've seen on the Net, called "respiratorytherapycave" here on blogspot (which was eaten by blogger, as I understand it).  John Bottrell, Rick Frea, Jane Sage and Will Lessons--none of whom I've heard a word about in my life--are cited as those who write there, though my quick search doesn't show what their background is.   The way they write, I take it they're therapists.  In other words, their content seems very good, their sentence structure and readability--not quite so much. Their stated goal is to "give an accurate, non-politically correct view of" RT.  Oh, you mean, as opposed to the politically correct picture of respiratory care consistently sent forth by the AARC, the American Association of Respiratory Care?   Works for me.

I have been a member of the AARC.  Would be today were I making money in RT.  The Association has been largely responsible, along with the diligent on-the-job work of thousands of individual therapists, for building our field into the respectable, valuable thing it is today.  Yet the instant I read RT Cave's phrase "non-politically correct view," I laughed and thought of the public relations department view of the field that constant comes from our professional association.  Bravo, RT cave!

I'm posting this here because I once before read a couple of essays by Cave, thought they were at least medium good, and then lost track of it.  Now if I just don't lose track of this blog again . . .