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ISRC
2008 Board of Directors
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| Election results were announced at the Annual Business
Meeting in Pocatello in September. President-elect is Tammy “Nikkie”
Stephens. Nikkie is a therapist at St. Luke’s Magic Valley in Twin
Falls.
Carrie Massey was reelected as Treasurer. Carrie is a clinical
educator at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls. Steve
Schaal
was elected a Director at large. Steve is Director of Respiratory
Services at Minidoka Memorial Hospital in Rupert. Ramona Sailor
was elected Delegate. Ramona is a therapist at St. Luke’s Magic Valley. |
| The complete 2008 ISRC Board: |
President: Brandi Johnson, Boise
President-elect: Nikkie Stephens, Twin Falls
Past President: Michele Andrew, Boise
Vice President: TJ Wing, Boise
Secretary: Elena Ilyusha, Boise
Treasurer: Carrie Massey, Idaho Falls
Directors at large: Dana Hagestad, Lewiston; Steve Schaal,
Rupert
Delegates: Kelly Dwello, Boise; Ramona Sailor, Twin Falls
Student Representative: To be appointed
Medical Director: Nirmal Charan, Boise
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ISRC
Web Site
www.idasrc.org
Education
- Resources - Employment
- Meetings/Events - Scholarships
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AARC
International Fellow Visits Boise
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Dave
Shuldes
| Editor’s Note: In the last edition, it was announced
that Fiona Ng, a nurse from Hong Kong would be Boise’s international fellow
this year. Ms. Ng had a family emergency and is postponing her fellowship
until next year. The AARC arranged for Dr. Mohan Kumar to fill the fellowship.
Dave Shuldes, RRT is Director of Clinical Respiratory Care at St. Luke’s
Boise and Meridian. |
 Dave
Shuldes and Conrad Colby joined forces to serve as Boise city hosts for
the week. Recreational activities included visits to the World Center for
Birds of Prey, Bogus Basin and Idaho City. Dr. Mohan had professional
opportunities with Lonny Ashworth at Boise State, Gordon Roberts at St.
Al’s, and the RT staff at both Al’s & Luke’s. He attended intensivist
rounds, spent time visiting inpatients with Dr. Saadia Akhtar, had a long
lunch with Dr. David Merrick, spent a day at the VA with Dr. Nirmal Charan
and Paula Carvalho, and visited local homecare patients with Norco’s Brent
Christensen. |
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experiences with Dr. Mohan were informative on both sides of the exchange.
He and a team of residents see up to 70 patients a day at the 500-bed Sri
Ramakrishna Hospital. The RT’s there handle all of the ventilator care
and use weaning protocols extensively. He also considers RT’s to be an
essential part of his office practice. He employs several RT’s as an integral
part of a comprehensive patient education program. Asthma is very prevalent
(7 to 12%) in the industrial southern India community of Coimbatore (pop
– 1.5 million). Initial patient visits for asthma can be up to 5 hours
with the patient seeing the MD, RT, PT, Nurse and Social Worker.
His goal is for the patient & family to leave the office with skills
for self-management. He pointed out one aspect of their practice
that is different from ours; they have had long-acting bronchodilator therapy
(LABA) available to them for more than 5 years. (This well-established
therapy in Europe and India is just now reaching its way into FDA-approval
here in the U.S.) |
Dr. Mohan stated that in India, Respiratory Therapists
are an extremely valuable role, but they are not nearly as large in numbers
as in the U.S. Therapists there generally start with 4 years of education
(a B.S. in Physiotherapy), then take 2 years of additional pulmonary education
as a specialty – 6 total years of training! Dr. Mohan is an active Professor
at the Sri Ramakrishna Institute of Paramedical sciences in Coimbatore,
and he took away from Boise a CD full of documents regarding protocols
and competencies we have developed here. He claimed the information gathered
from his many contacts here will be of great use to his colleagues and
practice in India. Thank you so much to all of the ISRC members who contributed
their valuable time to make Dr. Mohan’s visit a success!
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ISRC
Board Meeting
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TBA
February,
2008
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Contact
Brandi Johnson for more information at johnsonb@slrmc.org
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2007
Asthma Camp
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Mark
Wood
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| Another great experience as forty-plus
asthmatic children, ages 9-13, traveled north of Fairfield for the American
Lung Association’s Asthma Camp, held at the Methodist Camp in the Soldier
Mountain area. The theme this year was Wilderness Olympics. |
| Activities included, to name a
few: archery, fishing, hiking, t-shirt tie dye, rocket building with competition
launching, two early morning “polar bear” plunges in the chilly South Fork
of the Boise River along with some mid-day swimming time to cool off in
the heat of the day. Tug-O-War and a variety of races challenged the campers
physically as the RN, RT and MD staff from St. Luke’s and St. Al’s, and
the teen counselors, cheered them on and administered breathing treatments
and first aid when necessary – assuring every camper a safe and fun camping
experience. Again the “I can’t” was seen caught up in their peer asthmatics’
enthusiasm and they found themselves doing things that formerly fear of
an asthma attack kept them from venturing into. |
| Creative ways of educating the
campers included jeopardy quiz competitions, and even more fun, a water
balloon war where four teams of campers utilized their newly acquired compass
and compass skills in finding their stash of water balloons after answering
asthma related questions. |
| Smokey the Bear and his forest
service constituents highlighted the final day. They taught fire safety
and answered questions. A really cool Life Flight helicopter landed near
the lodge with the pilot, paramedic and nurse answering questions and allowing
exploration of the helicopter itself. |
| There’s something special about
being part of Asthma Camp. It’s hard to describe … it’s our mission statement
in action … I expect every participant puts a smile on God’s face that
week. |
| Editor’s Note: Mark Wood, RRT is
a critical care respiratory therapist at St. Alphonsus Regional Medical
Center, Boise. This article originally was published in St. Alphonsus’
newsletter,” Keeping in Touch”. |
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Camp Super Breathers campers,
staff and Smokey
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Life Flight makes a special landing to educate
the children on the role they play when rescuing patients
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Tidbits
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Lande Lambert (Disaster Guy)
is also a pulmonary technologist and respiratory therapist at St. Luke’s
Magic Valley in Twin Falls. He has authored a survey for Idaho pulmonary
labs that is included with this newsletter. Please fill it out and fax
it to him. Lande and myself will analyze the returned data and make some
suggestions for contents of a “PFT Corner” section of future newsletters.
Thank you in advance for responding.
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Bruce DeLawyer at St. Luke’s Boise
and Lonny Ashworth of Boise State suggested that the ISRC get involved
with a “Journal Club” for discussion of papers that will have an impact
on respiratory care practice. This would most easily be accomplished in
an internet format. Pam Lambert, our Webmistress has created a link from
our website, idasrc.org, to the discussion board site on www.nicenet.org.
After registering (free), go to class code C2Z9625X65. Read the paper “Should
Recruitment Maneuvers Be Used in the Management of ALI and ARDS?”, Respiratory
Care, May 2007 Vol 52 No 5, pgs 622-635, beforehand and give your thoughts
on the topic.
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The last ISRC Board of Directors meeting,
on November 9, was conducted through a conference call. According to President-elect
Nikkie Stephens, who hosted the meeting, there were a few glitches, but
the end result was an adequate meeting to conduct business. Although it
is nice to meet face to face, during the treacherous travel months, this
format could be very useful. The minutes of that meeting are included below.
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ISRC
Statewide PFT Survey
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Lande
Lambert
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If you did not complete the survey included in
the hard copy of the newsletter,
click here
to link to Acrobat Reader pdf form on-line.
Please complete the survey (even if you are not involved in PFT).
FAX the form to 208-737-2687.
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Conference
2007
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Tom
Gable
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| It was my pleasure to attend the 2007 ISRC Annual Conference
in Pocatello. The symposium occurred September 13 & 14 on the Idaho
State University campus. The facility was very good, with a large
room where vendor displays surrounded a central area with tables for relaxation,
camaraderie and meal functions. This room immediately adjoined a spacious
lecture room. |
| Day one, Thursday, started with John Barnes, RRT from
Tri-Anim reviewing methodologies and devices for bronchial clearance. He
worked up to the conclusion that periodic positive airway pressure and
PEP therapy were superior to other therapies for lung expansion and bronchial
hygiene. Maybe he was selling EzPAPs and Acapellas in the back. Roger
Hefflinger is a doctor of pharmacy and is an assistant professor of pharmacy
for ISU College of Pharmacy’s Boise campus. He gave a good review of asthma
therapeutics to include SABAs, LABAs, ICS and Expert Panel 3 slightly revised
asthma management guidelines. To stay in the pharmacology zone, John Davies,
RRT, FAARC, Clinical Research Coordinator in respiratory care at Duke University,
discussed the clinical features and pharmacotherapeutics for pulmonary
artery hypertension. |
| The afternoon got a change of pace with Sherry McCool,
RRT-NPS from Kansas City describing the requisites for a regional pediatric
medical transport service. Sherry is the operations manager for the Children’s
Mercy Critical Care Transport Team. It seems like exciting and gratifying
work, but I think you have to be thin to succeed (the choppers and fixed
wings only have so much lift). Other key concepts are: don’t run out of
batteries or medical gases. |
| Vijay Deshpande, RRT, FAARC is a Professor Emeritus at
Georgia State University. Vijay posed the question, “Why don’t I get the
pay raise I deserve?”. He rightly laid the blame on us all for less than
full-hearted support and definition of the field. The fact is, we are the
in the lower echelon of the non-physician medical professionals because
our field is poorly defined and understood in the psyche of the populace
and we don’t have enough support of our coworkers to have a strong governmental
lobby presence. A fairly easy fix would be convincing our work colleagues
to support the efforts of the professional association by giving financial
support, which is really not very costly. There is definitely strength
in numbers and we would be wise to be unbending in maximizing our efforts
to impress this fact on our non-member coworkers. |
| The highest rated talk of the conference (from post-conference
evaluations) was a review of assessing chest radiographs by Jeff Anderson.
Jeff is the Director of Clinical Education for the respiratory care program
at Boise State University. His presentation style is always extremely interactive
and very enthusiastic. He had an audience of several score fervently repeating
the mantra of plain chest film inspection: No significant tracheal displacement
or active pleural process; normal heart size; no hilar or mediastinal lesion;
the lungs are clear; unremarkable bones and soft tissues; identify tubes,
lines and their positions. The didactic portion of the meeting closed with
Chris Cella, RRT from Respironics discussing noninvasive positive pressure
ventilation. |
| Following the day’s lectures, a Sputum Bowl competition
was held. It has been several years since this contest was included in
the ISRC agenda. This one was very entertaining and I hope we can carry
on the tradition at future meetings. This scenario was not the initial
plan, but we ended up with five teams, each of which had an instructor
and two students from the respiratory care programs at BSU and ISU. As
we worked our way through the double elimination format, we got to a place
where three teams from BSU all had the same record. It was decided that
was a good point to call the match a tie, which we did. I was the moderator
for the match and was very happy with finally having a spirited Idaho competition.
I have the honor of putting on a “Snooze Bowl” game (same concept, different
questions) at each year’s conference of the Idaho Sleep Disorders Association,
and it is the social highlight of the meeting. I am hoping that our respiratory
therapists get as excited and involved in the fun of the game as their
polysom tech colleagues. |
| The evening ended up with a live band and dance party
at the Holiday Inn. A good time seemed to be had by all, and for an intrepid
few, the evening never did seem to end. |
| Since I was one of those few, some of the Friday program
information was gained by the handouts provided by the speakers. Dr Kent
Christopher from Denver discussed the very difficult problem of weaning
patients from prolonged mechanical ventilation. Dr Christopher is an associate
clinical professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, the initial
describer of vocal cord dysfunction, an active member of the National Association
for Medical Directors of Respiratory Care (NAMDRC) and is associated with
Transtracheal Systems. With his transtracheal background, he described
transtracheal augmented ventilation (TTAV) for ventilator weaning. He also
fully described Respironics Cadence system, which facilitates TTAV. |
| John Davies was on the stage again discussing ventilation
in morbidly obese patients. As it turns out, there is very little data
on this topic, so good luck at the bedside. Jil Cruz, RN, RRT gave a review
of carbon monoxide poisoning and detailed the RAD-57, the oximeter that
also measures CO, by Masimo, Jil’s employer. Keith Kohutek, RRT-NPS, from
Bunnell, outlined that company’s infant jet ventilator and its role in
protecting from volu-trauma. Rob DiBlasi, RRT-NPS from Seattle Children’s
Hospital Research Institute gave an overview of new advances in neonatal
ventilation strategies. The meeting ended with quick (thankfully) review
of fluids and electrolytes by Paul Eberle, PhD, RRT, a professor from the
Weber State University respiratory care program. There was a comparison
of the various volume expanders followed by the roles of the major electrolytes. |
| All in all, this year’s conference was excellent. Add
to that, our gracious coordinator and hostess, Treasurer Carrie Massey,
was so well organized that everything went off without a hitch and she
made us a pile of money to rejuvenate our treasury. Thank you Carrie. |
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BOD
Meeting Minutes
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November
9, 2007
Twin
Falls
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| Members present: Brandi
Johnson, TJ Wing, Nikki Stevens, Ramona Sailor, Rodney Young, Steve Schaal,
Lande Lambert, Elena Ilyusha, Kelly Dwello, Michele Andrew |
| Michele called the meeting to order. |
| Last meeting minutes were read and approved. |
| Treasurer's Report: Brandi
presented the report from this year’s ISRC conference. |
| Committee Reports: |
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Delegates Report:
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Resolution # 04-07-23: Submitted
by Alabama and Florida. Resolved that the House of Delegates will
receive the proposed AARC budget on the first day of the HOD meeting in
December. On the next day of the meeting the HOD will vote regarding
the proposed budget. This directly effects the ability of the HOD to carry
out its purpose by allowing more time to review and discuss the budget.
The vote by the HOD will be based on suitable, unhurried deliberation.
Delegates receiving the budget will be obligated to hold this information
in strictest confidence and that none of the details will be made known
to others. Implementation cost: 0. Ongoing cost: 0 This resolution
was approved by the ISRC committee.
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Resolution # 94-07-24: Submitted
by Virginia. Resolved that the AARC develop a list of suggested
competencies and equipment that Respiratory Therapy departments may use
as guidelines in order to prepare for Pandemic or Mass Casualty situations.
The AARC, as a professional organization of respiratory therapists should
help develop a pandemic or mass casualty situation competencies so when
the next crisis occurs the profession will provide the best possible
patient care. These competencies should be the same on a regional
as well as on a national level. Implementation cost:
app. $8,000. Ongoing cost: 0. This resolution is still
being discussed by ISRC.
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Resolution # 94-07-25: Submitted
by Minnesota. Resolved that the AARC provide a discussion “blog”
on the website for the purpose of posting relative important information
to submitted resolutions in advance of the HOD
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meetings. This blog would provide an
opportunity for the delegates to better prepare for the resolution process
by obtaining more in-depth facts and information for consideration. It’s
intended to augment the House of Members to have more resolutions and it
will give additional information for pros and cons to share during discussions.
Implementation cost: TBD. Ongoing cost: TBD. It was decided
by the ISRC that we currently have a way to contact other delegates and
if it going to cost any extra to do this, than it shouldn’t be added.
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Newsletter: Tom Gable was
not present.
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Disaster Guy: Talked about the resolution
for the funding of equipment and competencies for the pandemic mass casualty
situations.
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Legislative/PACT: Capital Connections--don’t
forget to email your Congressman. Conrad Colby was not present.
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| Old Business: |
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The ISRC conference in Pocatello was
discussed by those who attended it. Carrie did a wonderful job putting
everything together.
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| New Business: |
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President’s meeting in March-Brandi
Johnson and Nikki Stephens will be going.
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Discussed next year’s ISRC conference-
Brandi will decide where it’s going to be and who will put it together.
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Lonny Ashworth, with BSU suggested
creating a link for a discussion board for people to submit questions and
comments.
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Board of Medicine would like to have
an RT on their board. Nancy Roberts was
nominated for the position.
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Kelly Dwello will be going to the AARC
Congress.
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| Next Meeting to be held in February, 2008. Brandi
will provide more information. |
| Meeting adjourned. |
| Respectfully submitted,
Elena Ilyusha, RRT
ISRC Secretary |
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Need Respiratory Care Professionals?
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2007
ISRC Board of Directors
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Michele Andrew (Boise), President
Brandi Johnson (Boise),
President elect
Chad Rye (Lewiston), Past
President
T. J. Wing (Boise), Vice
President
Elena Ilyusha (Boise), Secretary
Carrie Massey (Idaho Falls),
Treasurer |
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Carla Edmison (Lewiston), Delegate
Kelly Dwello (Boise), Delegate
Dana Hagestad (Lewiston), Director
at Large
Greg Pilcher (Lewiston), Director
at Large
Dr. Nirmal Charan (Boise), Medical
Director
Rebecca Brollier (Boise), Student
Representative |
Visit http://www.idasrc.org/contact_us.htm
to contact a Board Member.
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The Mountain Air newsletter
editor is Tom Gable. If you would like to contribute information/articles,
please contact Tom by e-mail:gablet@slrmc.org,
or fax (208) 381-3498.
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