Success Stories
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| Respiratory care instructor
Roger Hecht |
story by Gloria Biersdorff
"You can live five weeks without food, five days without water, but only five minutes without oxygen," notes Roger Hecht, coordinator of Lane Community College's Respiratory Care program in Eugene. This statistic held special significance for Hecht four years ago when his grandson, born prematurely at Sacred Heart Medical Center, required respiratory care at his first small breath. "A student from my first class was there, assuring me my grandson was breathing well," says Hecht. "It was really touching."
"Respiratory therapists are in all neonatal intensive care units, ICUs, at the high-risk deliveries, all traumas, all codes," says Jack Kelley, a second-year student commuting to Lane from Bend. "We help the sickest people in the hospital. It's what winds our clocks."
Kelley, 37, has interned in half a dozen medical clinics from Bend westward, including Sacred Heart Medical Center’s intensive care unit under the supervision of IC coordinator Chuck McGhee, who acts as Jack's preceptor, or volunteer clinical instructor. For the past two years, SHMC, McKenzie Willamette Medical Center, and medical facilities throughout Oregon have sustained the life of Lane's two-year associate of applied science program, slated to be cut in 2001 because of the shortfall in state funding to the college. "The program was re-instated when hospitals agreed to offer clinical instruction to us," says Hecht. "This reduced our expenses by $90,000 per year."
Students now drive up and down the I-5 corridor three days a week; south to Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg, north to Albany General, Lebanon Community Hospital, Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis, and Salem Hospital for clinical rotations beginning at 6:45 a.m.
They also train through the full-service respiratory therapy company, Pneu-Med Inc., working in group homes throughout Lane, Benton and Lynn Counties. Chief Executive Officer Ken Pyle founded Lane's RC program in 1969. The company consistently gifts the college with equipment, and teaches students to operate a panoply of apparatus ranging from $1,500 oxygen test meters to $20,000 life support systems, says Ray Hass, manager of clinical services at Pneu-Med.
"I believe training therapists should be a joint venture, a partnership," stresses Hass. "Hospitals reap the benefit, Pneu-Med reaps the benefit. We all ought to share the cost, including the state." Hass says that the major shortage of respiratory therapists nationwide underscores the necessity of sustaining Lane's program, one of only three in Oregon. The other two are at Mount Hood Community College and Oregon Institute of Technology.
Lane graduates 15 to 20 students each year, who become Registered Respiratory Therapists after successfully passing the Advanced Practitioner credentialing examination administered by the National Board for Respiratory Care. "Lane's licensure is always 100 percent, or near. Graduate job placement is always 100 percent, or near," says Hecht.
"Directors in Idaho, Washington, California, Montana all pursue Lane graduates," says Janet Holloway, SHMC manager of respiratory care services. Nearly 80 percent of her 95-person staff is comprised of former Lane students.
