Respiratory Care (A.S.)

Breathe life into your career.

Breathing is a privilege many of us may take for granted. However, those with cardiopulmonary diseases know just how hard breathing can be. At SDSU, you can become a registered respiratory therapist (RRT) and help patients manage their breathing obstacles. To better fit your schedule, you can complete your program in Brookings, Huron, Madison, Sioux Falls or Rapid City. 

Students in the SDSU Respiratory Care program are exposed to advanced technology and the latest respiratory equipment, to include:

• Ventilators
• Ultrasound
• Blood analyzing machines
• Medical charting systems

Students will develop skills and master concepts in:

• Patient assessment
• Neo-natal care
• Hemodynamic analysis
• Ventilator Management
• Emergency and trauma
• Pulmonary diagnostic testing
• Disease management
• Respiratory pharmacology

The SDSU respiratory care program offers associate and baccalaureate respiratory care degrees, to prepare graduates with demonstrated competence in the cognitive, psychomotor and affective learning domains of respiratory care practice, as performed by registered respiratory therapists (RRT's). Upon graduation, you’ll be eligible to take the entry-level examination of the National Board for Respiratory Care to become a Registered Respiratory Therapist.

Our program is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Respiratory Care (CoARC). CoARC is the organization that accredits respiratory therapy education programs in the United States. To achieve this end, it utilizes an "outcome-based" process. Programmatic outcomes are performance indicators that reflect the extent to which the educational goals of the program are achieved and by which program effectiveness is documented.