Outgoing President David Vines Reflects on His Term
As my NBRC presidency is ending, I appreciate the opportunity to serve in this role and what we have accomplished. I cannot be more proud of the NBRC staff, Board of Trustee members, and consultants’ work to promote excellence in the field of respiratory care through credentialing examinations, MoreRTs.com, and philanthropy. As of November 30, we have administered over 22,000 tests across all examination programs this year, and more than 62,000 practitioners have paid their annual credential maintenance/support fee for 2022.
Our work to transition to a single multiple-choice examination in 2027 will position the profession for the future. An informational video has been created and posted on our website. I am pleased that the exam committees are already progressing in transitioning questions that will begin pretesting next year. Plans are underway for a job analysis in 2024 and a detailed content outline in 2025. This new Respiratory Therapy Examination establishes a pathway for the advancement of the profession. It will potentially decrease the barrier to entry by having to take one exam instead of two. Many individuals currently passing the TMC at the high cut score will most likely achieve the RRT credential on their first attempt.
The acquisition of the Certified Asthma Educator (AE-C) Examination from the NAECB added another specialty program to our cadre of exams. The AE-C exam is well recognized. An informational video about this program has also been created and added to our website. The NBRC will market and build this program over the next several years.
While we continue to support our Lambda Beta and ARCF scholarships, we have donated over $2 million this year by giving $5,000 to each CoARC-accredited respiratory care education program as part of our Choose to Give campaign. In addition, we have provided two $10,000 scholarships to CoBGRTE to support respiratory therapists seeking doctorate degrees. These initiatives support educational scholarships, grants and awards for current and future practitioners through all accredited education programs, the ARCF and CoBGRTE. These initiatives also support the goals of the national public awareness campaign, MoreRTs.
The NBRC remains committed to the national public awareness campaign and its four pillars of recruitment, retention, value and leadership for the respiratory care profession. MoreRTs.com continues to be developed with new content and videos. In addition, we have met twice with AARC and CoARC leadership and developed initiatives for 2023 to help increase hospital executives’ awareness of the profession’s value and assist educators in the recruitment and retention of students and respiratory therapists. AARC, CoARC and NBRC joint leadership meetings are now referred to as the Respiratory Care Collaborative.
As you have seen, we continue to showcase stories from RTs in the field and their contributions. At the end of July, we launched a patient story featuring Brianna Collichio, a young lady living with cystic fibrosis and who was an American Idol contestant. This campaign was geo-targeted around CoARC-accredited programs and marketed to prospective students and their parents/guardians. Brianna’s story on MoreRTs.com was a huge success. It increased website traffic by over 1500%. She and her mother joined us at AARC International Congress, where Brianna performed at the opening ceremony to a standing ovation. She also performed several songs at the NBRC Reception. Brianna was a fantastic find by our CEO, Lori Tinkler. Another NBRC and CoARC effort was the recently completed TikTok campaign to inspire the next generation of respiratory therapists. More than 160 TikTok videos were submitted with over 2.2 million combined views! The winners were recently announced and awarded prizes. Thanks for helping promote our great profession.
It has been my honor to serve as President of the NBRC for the past two years. I am delighted by the diversity in talent, experience and people that comprise our examination committees, staff and Board members. We have made progress, but there are still significant hurdles in creating awareness and sustaining this profession. However, I am confident that the NBRC working with AARC and CoARC can make a difference.
