What do you "do"?

[r louis scott]

I'm a respiratory therapist...

Interestingly, my current R&D project is an oxygen concentrator.

[Tycoon]

United States Postal Worker

[mmcdonald64]

I'm a respiratory therapist...

Interestingly, my current R&D project is an oxygen concentrator.

A new and improved one? It would be nice if patients could run a nebulizer off a concentrator. They don't have enough pressure to do it now. So many patients go home with both an oxygen and a portable neb, would be great to combine the two. :-)

[mmcdonald64]

Hahaha! Well I used to work with people who didn't breathe - in a mortuary. The living ones are so much more exciting, especially considering they talk back!
Prior to today, my favourite moment was (after setting up a treadmill stress test) . . .

My patient: "I guess we have to wait for the Cardiologist before we can begin?"
Me: "Yep. Legally I'm not allowed to call a 'time of death'."

Thankfully the patient thought that was hilarious! :D

LOL! Good thing he had a sense of humor.

[r louis scott]

I'm a respiratory therapist...

Interestingly, my current R&D project is an oxygen concentrator.

A new and improved one? It would be nice if patients could run a nebulizer off a concentrator. They don't have enough pressure to do it now. So many patients go home with both an oxygen and a portable neb, would be great to combine the two. :-)

The one I'm working on now will fit in the same size and form as a D size cylinder.

As to a nebulizer, engineering-wise I would think that would be a fairly straight-forward thing to accomplish. The problem, of course, is the disconnect between the therapist and users and the engineers that would build it because we have this layer between us called The Marketing Department. At least where I work, unless The Marketing Department thinks they can sell a bunch at a profit, we aren't even going to try to build such a device.

[Mark]

I quit my job at the end of 2009 so that I could take a couple of years off to travel. Some circumstances changed, and after spending three months in Costa Rica, I'm now back in Vancouver and deciding to use a portion of my savings to write full time for the next three or four months.

So I guess I'm technically unemployed.

[izanobu]

I've held a few different jobs (emergency dispatcher, private security, 7-11 clerk, horse trainer etc...). Now, I just write. It is my day job :)

[miahayson]

Wow! You guys all have such cool jobs! *sighs* I'm going to go ahead and try to make my "job" sound spectacular now too (thank-you-don't-mind-if-I-do) So:

I'm a psychology undergraduate. I spend my time being told and reading about what makes people tick. My fellow classmates and I have brilliant fun gallivanting around campus asking people "how that makes them feel" and then nodding wisely at each other as if their confused replies make them weird.

I also spend a lot of time wishing my course included Parapsychology because I think running around pretending I'm in the Ghostbusters really appeals to the writer in me (not that I don't do this anyway, just that I would like to have a legitimate reason)

:~)

And now for the compulsory Psych joke:

How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?
Just one, but the light bulb has to WANT to change.

[Margo]

I've held a few different jobs (emergency dispatcher, private security, 7-11 clerk, horse trainer etc...). Now, I just write. It is my day job :)

Emergency dispatcher? Like 911? Police, fire, ambulance, or a combination thereof?

I spent 3 years as an emergency services dispatcher, answering police lines and 911 and dispatching police, and patching appropriate calls through to fire or ambulance. It was great for getting police terminology right for writing projects, but I still occasionally have nightmares that I've gone back to that job.

[BlancheKing]

undergraduate college student. Leaning towards med school at this point; I'd like to be a doctor someday. I don't really want to write for a living, just to put something on the shelves.

[cmrprindle]

Wow! You guys all have such cool jobs!

I agree. There's not a lot of cool in being an executive assistant except for the drama of trying to coordinate multiple schedules with multiple admins. I set up the cool stuff but don't actually participate in very much of it.

[bronwyn1]

I'm a current high school senior about to graduate. And in the fall, I'll be in college at long last!