SPOY Maybe This is Why

So it was Fall of 05. As IT Manager I had a bit of a budget for education so I got approved to go to San Antonio to the AARC Convention along about then. I had to pay for my room and travel, but Kindred covered my tuition. I had not even worked in RT for some time, but I still wanted to keep up. I had added a membership to the Long Term Care Specialty Section when I renewed my AARC membership that year, and I had had some contact with the Chairperson and Chair elect prior to the conference so I was really looking forward to going since I would know some of the section members there.

In October of that year at my home facility we put together the policy and started educating on the new ICU rounds process. It was mainly to be an interdisciplinary discussion on each patient in the ICU and moved from bedside to bedside with the group. My role was to be facilitator of the process and monitor the RT staff for compliance with the weaning protocol. When we started we had 9 vents running. That was a bunch for this hospital. We had usually been a very aggressive weaning facility and got the vent admissions weaned in 1-2 weeks, but for some reason the vents were not getting off as in the past. The rounds became a daily process and became a part of the unit routines. Each day we would round at about 0900 and any patient that should be going on a spontaneous breathing trial that was not got to it. We worked through clinical issues as a team and the patients came off of their vents. By the first week in December when the conference rolled around even with a few vent admits being added, the facility was down to no vents in use and every vent admit and all of the 9 vent patient we started with were weaned. This might have happened anyway, but it sure felt good to be back in the ICU and doing what I loved.

As I mentioned before, the 2005 convention seems like a watershed event for me. I didn’t realize it at the time, I just had a great time and met some great folks. All I could talk about with everyone was our successful Grand Rounds, vent care and weaning. I have always been excited about RT, but with being deprived of that feeling of accomplishment that I have when I participate in the care of a vent patient who has failed to be separated from their vent successfully at the hands of a world class acute care hospital’s ICU team and their medical specialists and I am part of the successful effort had left me totally jazzed by my dip back into clinical care. I guess my excitement and passion came through at the conference. I have always appreciated the recognition, but I hardly worked clinically in 2006, but the Long Term Care Specialty Section selected me as the Specialty Practitioner of the Year for that year.