Respiratory therapy, Bachelor

As a respiratory therapy student at Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences, your training will take you beyond the textbook and into the clinic, wherein as little as two weeks; you will gain hands-on experience with a wide variety of respiratory conditions and care procedures using state-of-the-art technology.

Prepared with introductory topics such as patient assessment, aerosol therapy, chest X-ray interpretation, and oxygen therapy, our students continue to develop as they learn and practice:

Adult critical care — intensive care unit and emergency room

Airway management — bag-mask ventilation and intubation

Asthma case management

Diagnostic procedures — pulmonary function testing, bronchoscopy, hemodynamic monitoring, and polysomnography

Cardiopulmonary rehabilitation

Mechanical ventilator management

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) case management

Pediatric and neonatal critical care — intensive care and emergency room

Hemodynamic monitoring

Patient assessment, oxygen administration, nebulizer therapy, and chest physical therapy

Smoking cessation

Lung health counselling

Newborn and pediatric critical care

Research study design

As a student, you will start working with patients and applying your skills in the fourth week of the program. You will graduate with nearly 1,400 hours of hands-on clinical experience and practice.

Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science is transforming health care for both patients and society through excellence in education, discovery, innovation, teamwork, and leadership.

The college's mission is to educate and inspire a diverse workforce of health care providers, physicians, and scientists through excellence in medical education, research, and clinical care; Alleviate human suffering by providing compassionate and culturally sensitive care; Enhance the biomedical sciences through discovery and innovation, and advance the national health care system through population science and leadership.

Since Mayo Clinic was established more than 150 years ago, our goal has been to provide outstanding care to our patients and offer superior educational programs that ensure the success of the next generation of medical, scientific, and allied health professionals.

In fact, even our name — Mayo Clinic — comes from this idea. From the beginning, Dr. William Worrall Mayo and his sons, Dr. William J. Mayo and Dr. Charles H. Mayo invited physicians and students to visit Rochester, Minnesota, and learn about their innovative medical and surgical practice. Visitors coming to observe referred to attending the "Mayos' clinic."

At the same time, the Mayo brothers and their colleagues were distinguished scholars who traveled the world to learn from others and bring back the latest medical developments to incorporate into their own practice. As the Mayo Clinic integrated medical practice grew, education's importance continued to be a central focus.