Principles of Respiratory Care

Course Description

Principles of Respiratory Care is the entry course of the respiratory care professional sequence. It introduces comprehensive patient assessment — the patient interview, vital signs, physical examination, and documentation — together with the mathematics used routinely in respiratory care and the infection control practices the profession depends on. Lecture and laboratory experiences are integrated, so that assessment techniques are learned and then immediately practiced.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, RET is the Respiratory Care prefix. The C suffix denotes an integrated lecture-and-laboratory course. RET1025C is normally the first or second course a student takes after admission to the program, running alongside cardiopulmonary anatomy and physiology and the introduction to equipment. It appears at approximately five Florida institutions. Daytona State publishes it at 3 credits, offers it in fall, and attaches a modest lab fee; admission to the Respiratory Care program is the prerequisite.

Everything that follows in the curriculum assumes this course. A respiratory therapist who cannot assess a patient accurately cannot safely operate a ventilator, because the ventilator settings are a response to the assessment. This is the course where the habits of the profession are formed.

⚠ Three parallel RET numbering families exist in Florida

Respiratory care is one of the clearest examples of numbering divergence in the Florida system, and it produces real confusion in transfer evaluation and in advising.

• Daytona State integrates lecture and laboratory: RET1025C "Principles of Respiratory Care and Lab," RET1026C, RET1264C, RET1265C.
• Valencia College splits them: RET1025 "Principles of Respiratory Care" as a 3-credit lecture (3-0-0), with laboratory content carried separately in RET1274L, RET2283L, and RET2284L.
• Broward College and Gulf Coast State use entirely different numbers for the same progression — Broward's introductory sequence runs RET1024, RET1026/RET1026L; Gulf Coast's runs RET1024/RET1024L, RET1264/RET1264L.

SCNS equivalency does not cross numbers, and the C suffix is part of the number. RET1025C and RET1025 are different courses carrying different contact hours even where the subject matter is the same. Read the credit value, the suffix, and the catalog description — not the three-letter prefix and a rough title match.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Conduct a structured patient interview, obtaining a respiratory history, symptom description, smoking and occupational exposure history, and current medications.
• Measure and interpret vital signs — temperature, pulse, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation — and recognize abnormal values requiring escalation.
• Perform a systematic cardiopulmonary physical examination using inspection, palpation, percussion, and auscultation.
• Identify and describe normal and adventitious breath sounds and correlate findings with underlying pathology.
• Recognize the physical signs of respiratory distress and impending respiratory failure.
• Assess level of consciousness, work of breathing, breathing pattern, and cyanosis.
• Perform respiratory care calculations accurately, including gas laws, ideal body weight, minute ventilation, alveolar ventilation, oxygen content, and FiO2 and flow determinations.
• Convert reliably among units of measurement and apply dimensional analysis to clinical problems.
• Calculate drug dosages and dilutions used in respiratory therapy.
• Apply standard precautions and transmission-based precautions, and select appropriate personal protective equipment for the situation.
• Describe the infection risk of aerosol-generating procedures and the controls that mitigate it.
• Perform hand hygiene and equipment disinfection to professional standard.
• Document assessment findings accurately, completely, and in professional format.
• Communicate findings and concerns to the health care team using structured handoff communication.
• Describe the scope of practice, professional responsibilities, and ethical obligations of the respiratory therapist.

Optional Outcomes

• Interpret basic chest radiographs and identify gross abnormalities.
• Interpret arterial blood gas values at an introductory level.
• Describe basic ECG rhythm recognition.
• Perform bedside pulmonary function screening measures.
• Describe patient education, health literacy, and smoking cessation counseling.
• Describe the medical record, electronic documentation systems, and charting by exception.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• The profession of respiratory care: history, scope, credentials, and the health care team
• The patient interview and respiratory history
• Vital signs: measurement, normal ranges, and interpretation
• Physical examination of the chest: inspection, palpation, percussion, auscultation
• Breath sounds and adventitious sounds
• Recognition of respiratory distress and respiratory failure
• Pulse oximetry and capnography fundamentals
• Mathematics for respiratory care: units, dimensional analysis, and conversions
• Gas laws and their clinical application
• Ventilation calculations: tidal volume, minute ventilation, dead space, alveolar ventilation
• Oxygenation calculations: FiO2, oxygen content, and flow rates
• Drug dosage and dilution calculations
• Infection control: chain of infection, standard and transmission-based precautions
• Personal protective equipment, respirator fit testing, and aerosol-generating procedures
• Equipment cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization
• Documentation, the medical record, and legal aspects of charting
• Communication, handoff, and interprofessional collaboration
• Patient safety, body mechanics, and medical emergencies

Optional Topics

• Introductory chest radiograph interpretation
• Introductory arterial blood gas interpretation
• Basic ECG recognition
• Bedside pulmonary function screening
• Smoking cessation and patient education
• Cultural competence and health literacy in patient communication

Resources & Tools

• Egan's Fundamentals of Respiratory Care — the dominant text in the field and the one most Florida programs adopt; it will be used across several courses, so buy the current edition.
• Wilkins' Clinical Assessment in Respiratory Care — the standard assessment text and the closest match to this course's content.
• Respiratory Care Calculations (Chang) — the standard reference for the mathematics portion, and worth owning through board preparation.
• American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC) — Clinical Practice Guidelines, free and authoritative; these define the standard of care for most procedures.
• NBRC (nbrc.org) — examination content outlines for the TMC and CSE. Reading the content outline in the first semester tells a student exactly what the destination is.
• CoARC (coarc.com) — accreditation status lookup for programs.
• CDC infection control guidelines and the OSHA Respiratory Protection Standard (29 CFR 1910.134).
• Laboratory equipment: stethoscopes, sphygmomanometers, pulse oximeters, simulation manikins with breath sound capability, PPE, and disinfection supplies.

Career Pathways

• Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT) in acute care — intensive care, emergency department, general floors; the primary destination.
• Neonatal and pediatric respiratory therapist — NICU and PICU practice, with the NPS specialty credential available.
• Adult critical care specialist (ACCS) — advanced credential for ICU practice.
• Pulmonary function technologist — diagnostic laboratory practice, with CPFT and RPFT credentials.
• Home care and durable medical equipment — ventilator-dependent patients, oxygen, and CPAP/BiPAP setup and follow-up.
• Sleep disorders technologist — a common lateral move for Florida therapists.
• Pulmonary rehabilitation, asthma education, and case management.
• B.S. completion and beyond — several Florida institutions offer B.S. degrees in respiratory care leading to leadership, education, and clinical specialist roles.
• Florida employers include AdventHealth, Orlando Health, BayCare, HCA Florida, Baptist Health, Tampa General, UF Health, and Lee Health. Florida's older population sustains unusually high demand for pulmonary services. SOC code 29-1126 Respiratory Therapists.

Special Information

⚠ The math is where students fail, and it is not because the math is hard

The mathematics in respiratory care is arithmetic and algebra — nothing beyond a college algebra prerequisite. Students nonetheless fail this portion at a notable rate, and the reason is consistent: the failure is in unit discipline, not in computation. Minute ventilation in liters when the tidal volume was given in milliliters, ideal body weight computed in pounds and then used in a formula expecting kilograms, an FiO2 entered as 40 instead of 0.40 — each of these produces a confidently wrong number.

The habit worth building immediately, and carrying into practice: write the units and cancel them. Dimensional analysis takes ten extra seconds and it is the single most reliable defense against the class of error that, at the bedside, sets a ventilator wrong. Students who treat the math unit as a hurdle to clear tend to meet it again at board review and again in the ICU.

⚠ Respiratory therapists are among the most exposed clinicians in the hospital

The infection control content of this course is not generic. Respiratory therapists perform the procedures that generate infectious aerosols — suctioning, intubation assistance, nebulizer therapy, bronchoscopy support, non-invasive ventilation, and airway management during codes. In every respiratory outbreak, RTs are in the highest-exposure group.

Two practical points. First, N95 respirator fit testing is required annually under the OSHA Respiratory Protection Standard, and a respirator that has not been fit tested to the wearer's face is not protection — facial hair, weight change, and dental work all affect the seal. Second, the discipline that matters is the unglamorous part: hand hygiene between patients and correct doffing sequence. Contamination during removal of PPE is a well-documented failure point, and it is a technique learned in a lab like this one.

⚠ Career-honesty note: plan for the RRT, not the CRT

The NBRC Therapist Multiple-Choice (TMC) examination has two cut scores. The lower score confers the Certified Respiratory Therapist (CRT) credential. The higher score qualifies a candidate to sit the Clinical Simulation Examination (CSE), which leads to the Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT) credential.

Students should aim at the RRT from the first semester, for a concrete reason: most Florida hospitals now hire, or promote, on the RRT, and many post positions as RRT-required or RRT-preferred with a short grace period for new graduates. A graduate who stops at CRT has a materially narrower job market and lower pay ceiling. Florida licensure under Chapter 468, Part V, Florida Statutes is administered by the Florida Board of Respiratory Care, and licensure requirements — including which credential is required for which licensure category — are set by rule and are amended periodically; verify current requirements with the Board rather than relying on a prior cohort's experience.

Note also that NBRC eligibility requires graduation from a CoARC-accredited program. Verify accreditation status on CoARC's public list, not on a school's marketing page, and check for probationary status.

Course format and contact hours

RET1025C is an integrated lecture-and-laboratory course. The 60 contact hours reported here — approximately 30 lecture and 30 laboratory — is consistent with Daytona State's 3-credit C-suffixed designation and with the several related RET C-suffixed courses in this repository, which uniformly run 3 credits at 60 hours. Where an institution splits lecture and laboratory (Valencia's RET1025 at 3-0-0 plus a separate lab course), the totals differ; read the syllabus. Expect graded laboratory practicals in which assessment technique is performed and scored — auscultation and vital signs in particular are assessed by demonstration, not by description.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions; 3000 to 4000 is also unproblematic, since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement — relevant to respiratory care because several Florida institutions now offer a B.S. completion track with 3000- and 4000-level RET courses, and associate-level coursework does not substitute for those.

One practical caveat overrides all of the above in respiratory care: programs are accredited, lock-step cohorts with sequenced clinical placements, and they accept transfer into the professional sequence rarely and only case by case. A student moving between programs should expect to repeat coursework regardless of what SCNS says, and should get any transfer evaluation in writing before relying on it.