Respiratory Therapist

Asthma. Fluid in your lungs. Emphysema. Any one of these conditions can make a person's life very difficult. If you'd like to help people breath easier, consider becoming an advanced-level RT, another in-demand, well-paying career you can achieve in just two years at Mercyhurst North East. Respiratory therapists work to prevent, identify, and treat acute or chronic dysfunction of the cardiopulmonary system. Classroom instruction combined with clinical experience in actual RT settings will provide you with the knowledge and hands-on skills to work in this growing field. 

The goal of this program is to prepare our graduates to excel at the Registered Respiratory Therapist level and to take both the National Board for Respiratory Care Certification and the Registration Exams, credentials required to practice as a respiratory therapist in most states.

For more information about our accrediting agency, visit the Commission on Accreditation for Respiratory Care website.

What can I do with this degree?

In 2008, about 81 percent of RT jobs were in hospitals, mainly in departments of respiratory care, anesthesiology, or pulmonary medicine. Most of the remaining jobs were in offices of physicians or other health practitioners, consumer-goods rental firms that supply respiratory equipment for home use, nursing care facilities, and home health care services.

Other sites include:

• Sleep disorder centers
• Diagnostic laboratories
• Rehabilitation, research and skilled nursing facilities
• Patient transport systems
• Convalescent and retirement centers
• Educational institutions
• Wellness centers

Median annual earnings of wage-and-salary respiratory therapists were $52,200 in May 2008.

Job Outlook

Employment of respiratory therapists is expected to grow much faster than the average for all occupations—by about 21 percent from 2008 to 2018. This is largely due to the growing elderly population, which widely suffers from respiratory ailments and cardiopulmonary diseases such as pneumonia, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and heart disease.

The vast majority of job openings will continue to be in hospitals. However, a growing number of openings are expected to be outside of hospitals, especially in home health care services, offices of physicians or other health practitioners, consumer-goods rental firms, or in the employment services industry as a temporary worker in various settings.

Outcomes data from the 2011 Annual Report of Current Status has been posted on the CoARC website. Follow this link directly to the Programmatic Outcomes Data page.