(bright upbeat music) (gentle music) (birds chirping) - Hi.

How is your breathing today?

- Labored.

- Labored, okay.

When I was younger, I loved helping people and taking care of them, getting them anything that they needed and I wanted a job that would be rewarding.

My name is Brooke Parise.

I'm a registered respiratory therapist at Lehigh Valley Hospital of Hazleton.

One of my sisters is a respiratory therapist also.

I was in high school when she was in the Luzerne program and she would come home, tell us different things that she would see in clinical, and what she was learning about, and everything just seemed very interesting to me.

She definitely thought that it was gonna be a career that I would love.

This what I have right here, it is called an AMBU bag.

We use it when we are giving breathes to patients that are not breathing currently.

We get a good seal and we give their breath like this.

The educational path was I went to Luzerne for three years.

I got my degree in applied science of respiratory therapy, and then I went and had to get my license and passed two of the credentials to become a registered respiratory therapist.

(gentle music) A typical day for me, I come in, get report on some of my patients that I already have treatments on or they're on ventilators.

Anybody that has breathing issues.

We go around, see all different patients, give them treatments, whatever they need.

Sometimes we get emergencies in the ER if people can't breathe or if they're in accidents, stuff like that.

Hi there, I'm just checking on you to see how your breathing is feeling with this machine on.

Some of the key tasks are to get report on some patients that are already on breathing treatments prior to me coming into work.

All right, well, your tidal volumes are all very good.

Your rate is very good.

I think you're doing very well on this machine.

Some patients get treatments throughout the day.

Anybody that can't breathe right, if they're having difficulty breathing, if they need oxygen, I go and see all of them patients.

So as a respiratory therapist on a daily basis, we use, they're called ventilators, and that is what I have right here next to me.

They help with patients' breathing if they can't sustain their airway themselves, if they're having trouble breathing or if they're not breathing at all.

This ventilator will do all the work for them and they don't have to do anything.

(gentle music) All right, I'm gonna have you lift your head up a little bit.

I'm just gonna go right under your nose.

The most rewarding thing being a respiratory therapist is helping people that come in and they can't breathe at all and then within a few hours they feel 20 times better.

You're getting very good tidal volumes.

It looks like you're improving some, so that's a good sign.

Or people that are on ventilators for a couple days or weeks and eventually we're able to wean them off and they're getting extubated and it's like nothing ever happened.

I work three days a week, but they're all 12 hour shifts.

Doing those 12 hour shifts really cuts down on the days a week that I have to go into work.

(bright music) Being in this career helped me go on many vacations that I like, that I enjoy going to the beach.

I do enjoy exercising and running.

I like to go to different baseball games or football games and stuff like that.

(bright music continues) I would say that I am very happy with the choice that I made a couple years ago, and I don't think I would change that career path.

I was able to purchase my first brand new car, a 2019 Jeep Cherokee, and it's a car that I always wanted originally, and becoming respiratory therapist, it gave me that opportunity to finally purchase one.

I have been a respiratory therapist for the last four years and I enjoy every minute of being one.

(bright music continues)