What is respiratory therapy? A year ago, my answer would have been, “Uh, they put people on ventilators.” While that’s true, they do so much more.
In my senior year of high school, I had to interview an alum, and I was assigned a woman whose career was in respiratory therapy. I learned some things from the interview, but my primary focus was on her personal growth after she graduated from my high school.
Fast forward two years to January of my sophomore year. I was looking for a summer internship. As a film major, I applied to all of the major studios, including NBC, Paramount, Disney, and others. One problem – I had absolutely no experience. My high school didn’t have a film program. I had no idea I wanted to even consider film as a career choice until a month before I graduated high school. And I was so young that I couldn’t have had any jobs related to my field. This was the first summer when opportunities were open in general. However, one of my professors sent a job offer to work as a camera operator for an overnight shoot one weekend in September. While I wanted to be involved in the pre-production side of things, I knew I needed experience and needed to start somewhere. I set up a meeting with the person who sent the job request – Joe Lewis.
Joe is a YouTuber in the Fort Worth area, and his channel, Respiratory Coach, teaches respiratory therapy students concepts to supplement what they’re learning in school and prepares them for their board exams and future careers. I was intimidated. I had only heard of respiratory therapy once in my life, and I had barely learned anything about the field itself. Yet I had this gut instinct to apply. So, I did. Then, on our phone call, I first heard his voice, and it was super energetic. I don’t know why, but it wasn’t what I expected. He encouraged me the whole interview, but I was still hesitant about the job.
He described his idea for the reality show, which we later named The Shift, and I took notes on the entire concept. Then came the question. “Do you have any experience?” he asked.
I replied no. In my head, I was saying, “That’s why I want this job.”
Then, he informed me that the shoot date had been changed to the beginning of August. I didn’t know my availability because I was still waiting for responses from other internships. Then, he paused and asked me the question I could rant about all day: “So you’re a film major, but what specifically do you want to do? What internships do you want?”
Then I went into a long-winded, jargon-filled explanation about how I wanted to write and do pre-production and do scheduling and my dream was to be a showrunner for TV.
He followed that by saying, point-blank, “Sarah, I am not a film person. And you mentioned a lot of things that I wouldn’t have even thought of. How would you like to do those things for me?”
“Like an internship?” I asked.
“Yeah, do an internship for me.”
He didn’t know what the specifications would be yet, but he still proposed it. I still hadn’t heard back from many of internships and jobs I had applied for, but he allowed me time to think. A month passed, and I continued to received rejection letters. It stung, but I expected it. Who would hire me?
The answer was Joe. He was ready to. After talking it through with a few close people, I decided to take the job. It would allow me to stay in Fort Worth, and I could work another part-time job at the same time if I wanted to. So, I took it. However, when I accepted the offer, Joe asked me to follow-up with an email that recapped our call and explained what I found most interesting about the project. As I said on the call, I’m crazy neurotic, which is my way of saying I’m super detail-oriented. I took notes on everything that was said at the meeting, which helped all of my ideas flow. I probably sent him an essay for an email, but he enthusiastically accepted my acceptance.
Great! I have a job. What now? I thought to myself. It allowed me to do what I wanted to do. But it was so much more. In the reality show we created for his YouTube channel, I was the voice for the film aspect of things throughout the entire project. It was a heavy responsibility, but it was worth it. I could go on and on about the work I did on the show. It was a lot, and it was rewarding.
However, one of the most rewarding aspects was getting to know and appreciate this previously unknown field in medicine. It was a whole community in Fort Worth, but also the world, that I wasn’t aware of, that most people aren’t aware of. What I loved even more was how many women were involved in this process: all three head judges, our celebrity judge (the President of the American Association for Respiratory Care), one of our two coaches, two contestants, the entire film crew, and two of the three PAs were women as well. Women had a significant role throughout this project.
Sarah and Dani were our two female contestants on The Shift, and they shone throughout the competition. They killed it, challenge after challenge. However, as the night went on, I noticed how they both took the lead and then felt guilty, as if they had steamrolled their teammates. This led to a major discussion that lasted throughout the night, and the female RT mentors were able to help walk the students through it. Women often tend to apologize for stepping into those roles, but those roles are necessary. So own it. It’s also essential to have your female community at work, so find those women whom you can trust and rely on each other through the good and the bad times. It was wonderful to be a female producer on this set and get to be a part of this conversation. The issues women face are universal, and I learned so much from these educators and mentors who work in a different field from my own.
For me, it was special to work with an all-women film crew. Traditionally, when someone walks on a set, the majority of the crew is made up of men. Sometimes it makes sense. There’s heavy-duty equipment that requires a certain kind of strength for which men are more commonly predisposed than women. However, a lot of the crew positions don’t require moving 100-pound lights. There are positions in the camera department like DP, camera operators, 1st ACs, 2nd ACs, and positions in the sound department that everyone has the potential to do, but they are still more commonly found among men. It was refreshing to work with an all-female camera crew. As I’m in the editing process, I find that their attention to detail they put into the shots they compose adds to the overall quality of the final product. They have their hands all over the final edit, and when people are watching it, I want them to know that they’re watching something that women have made visually through and through.
This whole process of The Shift has been about awareness, learning, and growth. I’ve learned about a career field that’s essential to our hospitals and the medical field, but I had little knowledge of what they actually do. Following that, I loved getting to show other people what they do and bring awareness to their field. As the editor, I also get to add those deep nuggets of conversation about women in the career, the challenges they face, and how they overcome them. Season 1 premieres October 19th on the Respiratory Coach YouTube channel, so tune in to see these conversations and the work these women have put into The Shift.