‘New’ Work for RT’s – How to get published or get on stage

For many of you, the thought of getting up and doing a presentation in front of a big group of peers is mortifying at best. The good news is, you don’t have to! You can write from the comfort of your own home. Or closest coffee house. And send your course off to a myriad of places that would love to pay you every month for your brainpower. Start with your State’s Respiratory Care society. Or, send it straight to AARC. Online learning is here to stay, and the new generation of RT’s would much prefer to learn on their phone. Plan accordingly!

You may decide, after finishing your masterpiece, that it would be better received live. Or not. All you need to do is identify an educational void. Find a small compartment in your brain that, every time you are orienting a new hire, or working with students, or working with a colleague that just isn’t as strong in their knowledge as you wish they were……. THAT TOPIC goes in said compartment, accompanied by a ding! to remind you to revisit this and expand on it later. That’s how Pediatric Rockstar and Become a Pulmonary Rehab RT were born. It’s how my next 2 courses are in process right now.

Step One: Think. How many times have you oriented people on the same topic? Think! Are you the one they put the new hires and the students with every time? Why is that? Because you are thorough, patient, and your manager trusts that when you sign off on an orientation, the job is done?

When fellow RT’s have trouble with vents, vent settings, or are unsure of how to categorize their patient’s symptoms or breath sounds, are you the one they call? Think! What priceless information do you share every day , with colleagues, Nurses, Doctors, or patients?

Think – Are you the only one who knows how to read ventilator waveforms? Do you get a call every time a baby or kid shows up in ER? Do you get called when the ABG machine goes down? Or when someone gets ABG results that don’t make sense, and they want your opinion before they re-draw another gas? These area all great education points! Now that you have determined your first class (congrats!) let’s go step-by -step and build this.

Step 2: The Brain Dump – Write out everything you know about this topic. Everything. Write it on lined paper and leave TWO spaces between lines. Think about the points that you emphasize over and over in an orientation. Set it down and go do something else. When you come back, re-read what you wrote and in the spaces, expand on what you think they need to know. Do this 2 more times.

Step 3: Back up your information with evidence- based references from the last 10 years at most. MedPage Today, Medline, Pubmed, and NHLBI are great places to find current research.

Step 4: Submit your work to your State society’s education committee, or to AARC. Depending on how much material you produced, you may apply for 1 to 10+ ceu’s for a regional meeting, annual symposium, or a workshop. You may just want to produce a written course, which is fine. Include a post-test.

Step 5: Decide how you want to present: At a meeting? On your own? Upload to a website for online courses? Make good use of powerpoint. Pictures and visuals, not too much text on the slide.

Some things to ponder: Be careful of publishing in print or online, and then doing live presentations. Often, you can’t do both without express permission from the publisher – even though you wrote it.

Set your pricing. Sure, people can find cheap ceu’s but consider how many ceu’s are required for your State and how many of those must be live presentations. I’ve had people tell me $20 per ceu is expensive and others tell me that, for a live presentation, $20 per ceu is a steal!!

Finally, HAVE FUN WITH IT! If you’d prefer to see all the above information live, go here: https://www.AcademyofNeonatalCare.org/courses . I am looking forward to hearing about all the great courses you are going to create. Keep me posted please!