Deep Breathing

Respiratory Therapy Helps Rural Areas

What has 36 legs to carry them great distances, 36 arms to give hugs, 36 ears to listen to what both little and big people have to say and 18 hearts big enough to lovingly care for 38 children and their parents for a whole day? Easy, of course, the 18 School of Health Professions respiratory therapy faculty, alumni and students who helped staff this summer’s Asthma Academy program in Missouri. 

Photos by Shawna Strickland
SHP students and faculty were among the clinicians in the New Madrid, Mo. asthma academy. Included in this photo are instructors Shawna Strickland and Emily Wilkinson, also an SHP alumna, and three MU RT class of '12 students-Ivan Lee, Colby Reinbold and David Kemper.
(Front: Kathy Moss prepares to help Alejandro, a participant in the Bernie, Mo., asthma academy with a spirometry test to check his lung function.)

Funded by a grant from the Missouri Foundation for Health, the asthma academies are day-long clinic visits for children and parents in Columbia and five rural Missouri towns. They are coordinated by MU School of Medicine Department of Child Health with the largest volunteer support coming from the respiratory therapy volunteers.

The academy provides allergy skin testing, spirometry tests to measure lung function, pulmonary specialist consultation via telehealth, asthma action plans, educational sessions and all of the home equipment and medications necessary to manage asthma. Med school faculty members provide most of the consultation and diagnostic testing. The respiratory therapists provide most of the education and the students helped with games and some education depending on their level of knowledge. Seniors taught children how to use peak flow meters while juniors talked to the patients and families about asthma triggers while working through videos and games.

Shawna Strickland, SHP’s respiratory therapy director, is co-investigator on the grant and also assisted at every academy site. She says the academies not only provide SHP students with ways to improve skills in communication, patient education and community involvement, they also were fun!

“It shows our students that there are children in rural counties that do not have the same access to care that urban children have,” Strickland says. “And, it’s exciting to see the kids master skills that can help them stay in control of their disease for the rest of their life.”

Strickland adds that the closeness in age of the college students and the child patients helps improve communication. “It helps create more of a rapport with the kids. They are more likely to understand how the kids may feel about having asthma such as being embarrassed, mad or upset.”

The academy grant runs through 2013 and Strickland says even for the experienced RTs the days can bring rewarding experiences. “One woman cried as she left my station. When I asked her what was wrong, she said ‘No one ever told me that I could help my baby. All this time I could have been helping him breathe.’ That’s powerful.”

— Cheri Ghan