I love respiratory physio although I don't get the chance to do it much these days. I have a great Littmans's stethoscope in my clinic but now that I run an outpatient practice I hardly get a chance to use it.

I suppose there was slight dismay on leaving university to find out that after 4 years of cardiopulmonary training (and I exclude CTU/ICU from this comment) the main treatment approach was always postural drainage, percs, vibes, huff, cough, spit - then walk the patient around the ward and give them an incentive spirometer. I am being sarcastic but it is not far from the truth. 4 years to learn that was a pain in the arse. Maybe the teaching needed to be more directed into the finer points of what really matters to the individual. We sure learnt in depth about the conditions, COPD, COAD, CF, Emphysema, Atelectasis, Bronchiectasis, Asbestosis etc. But in practice the routine on the ward was still as shown in the patients notes: DB&LBE, Percs/Vibes, Huff, Cough and walked 50m x 2. Boring - perhaps this is the reason, we don't feel challenged enough and perhaps we can blame the teaching for that?

Now as for ICU/ITU and nasopharyngeal suction, PEEP, CPAP, ultrasonic nebulisers etc, now that way fun. Unfortunately I don't see that in to often in the outpatient clinic