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Behind the Mask: Respiratory therapist enjoys spending time with family, traveling

5 min read
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Courtesy of Brook Ward

Lance Cook is a respiratory therapist at Washington Health System Washington Hospital.

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Lance Cook has worked for 16 years as a respiratory therapist at WHS Washington Hospital.

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Courtesy of Lance Cook

Respiratory therapist Lance Cook’s niece and nephew, Lizzie and Drew.

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Courtesy of Lance Cook

The northern lights as seen in Alaska. Lance Cook shot the photo while on a cruise.

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Courtesy of Lance Cook

Lance Cook poses for a photo during a recent trip to Alaska.

Lance Cook has worked as a respiratory therapist at Washington Health System Washington Hospital for 16 years.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Cook has helped educate and re-educate nurses transitioning back to the Critical Care Department from other departments on ventilator management so they can treat patients until a respiratory therapist arrives at the patient’s bedside.

Lance is a graduate of Wheeling Jesuit University, where he earned a bachelors degree in respiratory therapy in 1999.

He has been a volunteer firefighter for more than 27 years, and an EMT for 25 years. He enjoys playing cards with friends, but has suspended games during the pandemic.

He enjoys traveling, and has taken several cruises over the past four years, including trips to the Bahamas, Caribbean and Alaska.

Cook also likes to spend time with his immediate and extended family, including his niece and nephew, Lizzie and Drew.

Q. Why did you decide to do the work you do now?

A. I’ve always had a passion for helping people. Whether it’s just listening to a friend when they are having a hard time, to delivering a baby at a home when the mother realized it was too late to make it to the hospital, to helping a person suffering from a heart attack. My first job was at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh where I spent about five years working in the critical care department. And let me tell you, that experience was a game changer in my personal and career development. It’s both sad and amazing what the smallest humans can and do endure. While many days it was emotionally hard, I would never change one experience as it helped to mold me into the person I am today.

I also developed a passion for educating. If you ever are in a situation where you can educate someone on something, anything, and you see that person get to the “a-ha” moment where they understand something that they didn’t before it makes it all worth it. I was fortunate enough to be able to work as an adjunct professor at Wheeling Jesuit for almost seven years after my graduation. I taught new students both traditional and nontraditional respiratory therapy and there was nothing like seeing all those expressions go from one of confusion and overwhelm to the “a-ha” I get it now!

Q. If you were given a free plane ticket to visit anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

A. This might sound crazy, but I would go to the Lapland in Northern Finland during the winter. OK, let me explain. While on my Alaskan Cruise I was fortunate enough to have experienced seeing the northern lights. By account of the crew members on the ship, seeing the northern lights in that location of Alaska at that time of year was pretty much unheard of. Not only did I get to see them one night, but four nights in a row. Anyway, while the pictures I got were spectacular, I want to go to Finland one day to see the real show where they dance over your head all night and experience it all again!

Q. What do you want to tell people, or want them to know, about the COVID-19 pandemic?

A. That I work with an amazingly talented and compassionate group of people that, without hesitation, are ready to risk it all to save their fellow man. Every member of the WHS team played a vital role in the COVID-19 pandemic, but I would like to speak to my profession. Any time there is any type of medical emergency in the hospital you will always find a respiratory therapist. We draw blood from arteries, we give breathing medicine when patients can’t breathe, we do EKGs and we are responsible for airway and ventilator management. We assist with bronchoscopies, perform pulmonary function tests and educate patients in pulmonary rehab among many, many other things. We even completely staff the WHS Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Department which includes treatment as well as completing all insurance authorizations. In a matter of minutes, a WHS respiratory therapist could literally be performing CPR on a newborn and then a person that is 100 years old. My coworkers and I have to understand how to manage the ventilator of a person with COVID-19 in one room and someone in the next room that just had open heart surgery – they are VERY different. Yes, sometimes we lurk in the shadows or are in and out of a room and not even noticed, but we are there and will always be there when needed.

During this pandemic we have all had to make on the fly adjustments. Like everyone else in the world, we got our information sometimes literally by the minute and changes had to be made all the time. WHS would work to develop a plan only to find out an hour later that those recommendations were no longer valid and a new plan had to be developed. Every staff member in the WHS system adapted – some to new plans, some to new roles, but through every step of the way WHS did everything to fulfill their mission, to provide great patient care.

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