• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Regular/Temporary: Regular
• Hours Per Week: 35
• Salary Range: $90,000 - $115,000

Position Summary

A full-time respiratory therapist is sought to join our expanding intensive care unit (ICU) research group. We perform single- and multi-center clinical trials and clinical-translational cohort studies involving patients with acute respiratory failure and critical illness more broadly. The overarching goal of our research is to develop and validate novel therapeutic strategies to improve outcomes in patients with critical illness, with a particular focus on individually tailored treatment for patients with respiratory failure. The respiratory therapist will help manage multiple studies, including prospective clinical trials, observational cohort studies, and retrospective cohort studies for patients in the ICUs at New York Presbyterian’s Columbia University Medical Center and Allen Hospital. The respiratory therapist must be comfortable working with critically ill adult patients on life support, the population of interest for most studies, and interacting with their families.

Responsibilities

• Screen and enroll patients in studies. 
• Obtain informed consent from candidate study participants directly, or their legally authorized representative (surrogate) where applicable. 
• Perform bedside clinical assessments and examinations, including of sedation depth, non-verbal pain assessment, delirium assessment, among other assessments. 
• Perform clinical safety monitoring of enrolled patients, including but not limited to respiratory, hemodynamic, and vital signs monitoring and reporting of clinical laboratory tests where applicable. 
• Provide oversight and support to clinical staff with study medication administration and administer study medications per protocol, in collaboration with the clinical team. 
• Assess respiratory mechanics and perform study protocol-directed adjustments to the mechanical ventilator, in collaboration with the clinical team. 
• Obtain and analyze cardiorespiratory and other physiological data. 
• Initiate and adjust other respiratory support, devices, and monitors according to study protocol, in collaboration with the clinical team. 
• Insert esophageal manometry catheter via the oral or nasal route to measure esophageal pressure. 
• Assist with study protocol-directed prone positioning of patients. 
• Perform other bedside procedures as required by the study protocol. 
• Obtain and process biological specimens for enrolled study participants, including but not limited to venous and arterial blood samples, nasal or oropharyngeal respiratory swabs, airway samples (sputum, breath condensate, mini-bronchoalveolar lavage), and urine samples as needed for study protocols. 
• Document study measures, procedures, and safety monitoring in the medical record (e.g. Epic or equivalent) and participant study files. 
• Provide clinical trial in-service, education, and other training to multidisciplinary clinical staff.
• Oversee protocol adherence to study procedures and data collection. 
• Extract data from the medical record and maintain rigorous documentation for study records.
• Perform additional duties as needed.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent in education and experience, plus four years of related experience
• Current Respiratory Therapist certification/registration
• Current BLS certification
• Availability to work evenings and weekends on call as needed

Preferred Qualifications

• Clinical experience in the ICU or in ICU-related research.

Other Requirements

• Participation in the medical surveillance program
  • Wear N-95 respirator
  • Contact with patients and/or human research subjects
  • Potential bloodborne pathogen exposure
• Successful completion of applicable compliance and systems training requirements

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.