RET1026C – Fundamentals of Respiratory Care is a 3-credit course with integrated laboratory covering the basic therapeutic modalities of respiratory care: medical gas therapy, humidity and aerosol therapy, hyperinflation therapy, airway clearance, and the equipment that delivers each. It typically follows an introductory course and precedes the mechanical ventilation sequence.
This is the course where a respiratory care student first does the work. The introductory courses establish the profession and the cardiopulmonary system; this one teaches the interventions a therapist performs constantly — setting up oxygen, delivering a bronchodilator, mobilizing secretions, preventing atelectasis — and the clinical reasoning behind choosing among them.
Content covers medical gas therapy — oxygen indications, hazards, and delivery devices from nasal cannula through high-flow and non-rebreather systems; oxygen calculations — FiO2 estimation, air-oxygen entrainment ratios, cylinder duration, and flow requirements; gas cylinders and delivery systems — safety, regulators, flowmeters, and piped systems; oxygen analysis and monitoring; humidity therapy — physiology, devices, and indications; aerosol therapy — particle deposition, nebulizers, metered-dose inhalers, dry powder inhalers, spacers, and patient technique; respiratory pharmacology at an introductory level — bronchodilators, anti-inflammatory agents, and mucolytics; hyperinflation therapy — incentive spirometry, IPPB, and lung expansion; airway clearance — postural drainage, percussion, vibration, PEP devices, and high-frequency chest wall oscillation; suctioning — technique, indications, and complications; basic airway management — positioning, adjuncts, and manual ventilation; infection control and equipment processing; patient assessment applied to therapy selection and evaluation of response; and documentation and protocol-driven care.
Offered at Florida institutions with CoARC-accredited respiratory care programs.
Florida's respiratory care demand is sustained and structural: a very large older population with high rates of COPD and cardiac disease, a substantial post-acute and long-term care sector, and hospital systems in every metro. Demand rose sharply during the COVID-19 period and has remained elevated; respiratory therapist appears on state high-demand occupation lists.
The correction this course exists to make, and one that persists in the general public and among some clinicians. Oxygen has indications, dosing, contraindications, and toxicities like any other drug. Excess oxygen is not benign: prolonged high FiO2 causes oxygen toxicity and absorption atelectasis, hyperoxia is associated with worse outcomes in several conditions including post-cardiac-arrest care and stroke, and in neonates it carries retinopathy risk.
The more nuanced case students learn here is the COPD patient. The traditional teaching — that oxygen suppresses hypoxic drive and causes CO2 retention — is oversimplified; the better explanation involves V/Q mismatch and the Haldane effect. The clinical bottom line is what matters: titrate to a target saturation rather than giving the maximum available, and for patients at risk of hypercapnia the target is lower than for others. A therapist who can explain why is substantially more useful than one repeating a rule.
Practical study advice. Respiratory care contains a defined set of calculations that recur throughout the program and appear on the NBRC examinations: air-oxygen entrainment ratios, total flow delivered by an entrainment device, cylinder duration using tank factors, minute ventilation, and later the ventilator and blood gas calculations.
These are not difficult individually, and students who drill them until they are automatic free attention for the clinical reasoning. Two habits: derive before memorizing, so you can reconstruct the ratio if you forget it; and sanity-check the answer — if a 28 percent entrainment mask appears to deliver less total flow than the patient's inspiratory demand, that is a finding, not an arithmetic slip, and it is exactly the reasoning the examination tests.
An unglamorous topic with outsized clinical consequence. A large share of patients use metered-dose inhalers incorrectly — poor coordination, failure to hold breath, firing into the mouth without inhaling — and the medication ends up in the oropharynx rather than the lungs. The prescription looks correct, the patient reports taking it, and the therapy does nothing.
Respiratory therapists are the people who catch this. Watch the patient actually use the device rather than asking whether they know how; teach with a spacer where appropriate, since it substantially reduces the coordination requirement; and reassess technique at every encounter, because it degrades. This is a high-value, low-cost intervention and it is squarely the therapist's job.
The laboratory format, and the same pattern that applies across hands-on health programs. Students set up equipment on and perform techniques with classmates, which requires appropriate clothing and involves being touched and touching others — and consent, explanation, and communication are graded components, because they are exactly what you will do with patients.
Assessment is typically by check-off: perform the procedure meeting every criterion, often with limited attempts, with safety items as automatic failures. Practice against the check-off sheet explicitly, with multiple partners, and say everything out loud — identifying the patient, explaining the procedure, checking the order, assessing before and after — because those steps are graded and are what students forget under pressure.
Respiratory care has a clear credential structure and students should understand it early. The National Board for Respiratory Care (NBRC) administers the examinations: the Therapist Multiple-Choice (TMC) examination yields the CRT credential at the lower cut score and eligibility for the Clinical Simulation Examination at the higher cut score, which leads to the RRT credential.
Two practical points. Aim for the higher cut score — employers overwhelmingly prefer or require RRT, many Florida hospitals hire only RRTs for staff positions, and the difference in pay and mobility is real. And Florida licenses respiratory therapists through the Department of Health under Chapter 468, Part V, F.S.; the NBRC credential is national, and Florida licensure is the separate step that authorizes practice here. Programs must be accredited by CoARC for graduates to sit for the examinations — verify accreditation on CoARC's own site before enrolling.
The practical timing advice: begin reviewing the NBRC content outline in this course rather than in the final term. Respiratory care content is cumulative and the examinations are comprehensive, so students who build a review habit early pass at higher rates. Programs with strong outcomes typically start structured review well before graduation.
Florida carries introductory respiratory content under several adjacent numbers — RET1021 and RET1024 (introduction), RET1025C (Principles of Respiratory Care), and RET1026C (Fundamentals), with institutions using different combinations. Eastern Florida State lists RET1024 as the prerequisite to RET1026; Polk State titles the course "Fundamentals of Respiratory Care I." It precedes RET1264C/RET1265C mechanical ventilation and the clinical practice sequence (RET1874, RET1875, RET2876, RET2877). SCNS equivalency applies to the same number at the same level, never across numbers, and respiratory care coursework rarely transfers between programs mid-sequence because clinical competencies are tracked against a specific CoARC-accredited plan.
Generated September 1, 2026 · Updated September 1, 2026