DMEs again: RT job description or duties

[Fats Drywaller]

The other day, while web-searching for something else, I found a set of instructions for changing the pressure on the Sullivan/Resmed S6 CPAP machine (which wasn't all that long ago on the timeline; we're at Resmed generation 10 now), so I glanced at that just from curiosity, and I was surprised to find that even at that late date, the adjustments had to be done by a technician using a manometer and probably wearing a white lab coat in a clean-room environment (OK, just kidding about that last part).

So it made me speculate (and that's all this is) that maybe one reason there's a general problem these days with DMEs being unhelpful to the sleep-apnea patients is that the personnel who dispense & maintain the CPAP hardware at those unfriendly neighborhood retail venues don't have much to do now, compared to olden times.  Back when it was skilled labor, presumably the RT was a necessary & respected (???) member of the medical team (again I'm just guessing), even though there wasn't much actual therapy involved.  But now the RT is, in most cases, only a supply sergeant dispensing equipment from a stock room and occasionally pushing buttons on the machines to adjust the pressures, and there's no therapy involved.  A sad come-down from a once high & mighty position?

[mesenteria]

I'm not so sure.  Back when bricks were real bricks, and there wasn't much to choose from, RT's had to find creative ways to help people to breathe through their several and varied respiratory disorders and diseases.  Now, not only is the science behind apnea control more sophisticated, but so are the diagnostics, analyses, and treatments.  Seems to me some RTs are really still earning their keep.

In my case, a small n of merely 1, my RT receive the prescription for a trial, and it was she who had to monitor my early treatment, adjusting the machine remotely as was needed.  She provided the instruction and explanations to me, and offered to cover what the short interview (via Skype) with the sleep doctor didn't gel or get revealed.  I feel she was highly instrumental in my recovery and ongoing maintenance.

[Walla Walla]

I think people confuse RT's with Nurses and Doctors which they are not. They don't make decisions on treatment. They follow the directions given them.

[mesenteria]

I think people confuse RT's with Nurses and Doctors which they are not. They don't make decisions on treatment. They follow the directions given them.

I don't know if my own RT is also a nurse, but found out last week that my father's RT, at another DME, is.  It was she who expressed great concern for me as a 'taper'.  She said that her experience as a nurse leads her to fear for me in the long term.  It's the aging skin.  She says it generally gets paper-thin with age and that repeatedly removing tape from over the mouth could end up in skin tears.  For me, the user of an anti-clotting agent, this would not be a salutary development.