What is a lab class and what will we do there?

Because the field of respiratory care is so technical, the RCP student must learn to operate and troubleshoot a multitude of respiratory care devices: from simple oxygen delivery devices to highly complex mechanical ventilation with computer graphics. The best method of learning any piece of equipment is to touch it, to assemble and disassemble it, in short to "play with it" in the lab with an instructor. This is the purpose of the lab.

Prior to our student entering the hospital to perform any procedure on a patient, the student will have been introduced to the equipment associated with the procedure in the lab classes. She/ he will have explored this equipment by performed various lab experiments with it. After exploring the equipment, the student will practice this particular respiratory care procedure in the lab with fellow students, and finally the student will be tested on the skill using a standard procedural check off form. The instructor who taught the skill will test the students as well as calling in other respiratory therapists on the faculty.

We at Lone Star College-Kingwood respiratory care program are extremely proud of our extensive collection of respiratory care equipment. While most was purchased with our own funds or with grant money, we have been blessed by several benefactors who have donated or loaned us extremely valuable equipment over the years so that our students can enter the work place confident and competent to perform the tasks required of a respiratory therapist [RCP].

This is a partial list of the respiratory care equipment we utilize in the lab and in the classroom:

• collection of various oxygen delivery devices
• bank of 02 tanks and piping systems for deliver of 02 in the walls to student stations
• collection of aerosols devices and humification devices
• manometers for blood pressure measurements
• manometers for airway pressure measurements
• arterial blood gas kits
• arterial blood gas analyzers
• pulse oximeters
• capnography
• transcutaneous Pa02 monitors
• gas regulators
• electrical chest percussor
• adjustable patient beds and gurneys
• defibrillator
• electrocardiogram
• bedside pulmonary function devices
• TheAirapy Vest
• BiPap/STD
• complete pulmonary function lab with body box
• Servo 900 C mechanical ventilator
• 7200 volume ventilator with graphic display
• Sechrist pressure ventilators
• BP200 neonatal ventilator
• Bear Cub neonatal ventilator
• negative pressure ventilator [Cuirass]
• IPPB machines
• Suction devices and catheters
• Airway management devices

This is a partial list of the teaching devices we us in our lectures and in our labs:

• teaching mannequins that can be intubated and ventilated
• mannequins with which we can draw arterial blood gases
• mannequins with which we can listen to breath sounds and heart sounds
• mannequins with which we can place IV lines
• cardiac arrhythmia simulator
• test lungs we can place on the ventilator so that we can mimic patient situations in the lab
• computer simulation programs that prepare the student to take the board tests she/he will need to get credentialed
• computers that can go on the internet so that the class can access the wide array of information and medical data bases available on the world wide web
• ELMO device that can blow up a picture in a book or a slide to display on the screen or the instructor can demonstrate a small hand movement technique that can be blow up and displayed on the screen, or it can interface with the computer
• a departmental video library that supplements the college's extensive video library
• SMARTBoard, an electronic white board that can interact with sideshows and with the Internet