Breath in, breath out

Editor’s note: this is the third in a series of articles taking a look at the inner workings of Missouri Southern’s School of Technology.

Students seeking an associate’s degree in respiratory care at Missouri Southern don’t see each other as classmates. They’re more like family.
“There’s days that you want to cry, there’s days that you’re so excited, it’s a really long process and you get really, really close to your classmates,” said Janey Sowell, second-year respiratory care major.
The degree takes two years to complete, and there are only 15 first-year students and 16 in their second year. Even if not always in face-to-face contact, they talk every day.
“There’s not a day that goes by that we don’t have some sort of communication with each other,” Sowell said. “You just get that close, and we go through a lot together, and that’s what you rely on to get through school.”
Director of Respiratory Therapy Glenda Pippin said the students spend their first year in the program doing clinical rotations - working in area hospitals for nine hours a day on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Working in the emergency rooms is where some said they most enjoy learning.
“My favorite part is being in the ER when they have people coming in with traumas or code blues, that’s really cool,” said Brenda Barger-Saunders, first-year student. She worked in pharmaceutical sales for 24 years before coming to Southern to get her degree.
Second-year students expand their education beyond close hospitals by working in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Though they are still students, they’re already involved in life-saving work. Sowell remembers helping an infant that weighed less than one pound.
“You’re so stinkin’ tired because you literally get up at two in the morning sometimes,” Sowell said, “But then you get there and it’s so exciting, it doesn’t even feel like you got up at two.”
With the respiratory care education, students can work in emergency rooms, intensive care units, clinics and several other health care facilities. On top of the Associate’s degree in respiratory care, Pippin said students can get a bachelor’s in health science and apply for certification from the National Board of Respiratory Care.
Also, they focus on community service, working for downtown Joplin’s Community Clinic. They earn service learning credit for that time.
“From the time we enrolled, [Pippin] pushed for community service,” Sowell said. “It’s important for us to be involved in our community and not only our job.”
Even with the demanding amount of time the respiratory care degree requires, none said they’ve regretted joining the program.
And at the end of the day, they still have their family.
“Every day for the two years, [we’re] going through some really stressful, happy and crazy experiences that a lot of people have never even seen,” Sowell said. “We rely on each other a lot.”

• Facebook Comments
• Site Comments

Be the first to comment on this article!

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Enter the characters in the image above:

log out