Jobs / Healthcare / 29-1126.00
Respiratory Therapists
Assess, treat, and care for patients with breathing disorders. Assume primary responsibility for all respiratory care modalities, including the supervision of respiratory therapy technicians. Initiate and conduct therapeutic procedures; maintain patient records; and select, assemble, check, and operate equipment.
- US jobs
- 139,790
- Median wage
- $82,280 a year
- Job family
- Healthcare
Can agents do the work of respiratory therapists?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Healthcare:
- Task levelPartialOne benchmark, from early 2025. On Stanford's MedAgentBench, where agents do clinical tasks in a simulated electronic health record, the best recorded model completes 69.7% of tasks (Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2). It has no maintained leaderboard, so newer models are not measured. No benchmark in our collection tests work with patients.
- Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. GDPval includes nurses among its 44 occupations. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons across all occupations. No benchmark in our collection tests clinical work over days, such as managing a patient's care.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in healthcare, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Set up and operate devices, such as mechanical ventilators, therapeutic gas administration apparatus, environmental control systems, or aerosol generators, following specified parameters of treatment.
- Monitor patient's physiological responses to therapy, such as vital signs, arterial blood gases, or blood chemistry changes, and consult with physician if adverse reactions occur.
- Read prescription, measure arterial blood gases, and review patient information to assess patient condition.
- Relay blood analysis results to a physician.
- Provide emergency care, such as artificial respiration, external cardiac massage, or assistance with cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
- Enforce safety rules and ensure careful adherence to physicians' orders.
- Work as part of a team of physicians, nurses, or other healthcare professionals to manage patient care by assisting with medical procedures or related duties.
- Maintain charts that contain patients' pertinent identification and therapy information.
- Make emergency visits to resolve equipment problems.
- Determine requirements for treatment, such as type, method and duration of therapy, precautions to be taken, or medication and dosages, compatible with physicians' orders.
- Inspect, clean, test, and maintain respiratory therapy equipment to ensure equipment is functioning safely and efficiently, ordering repairs when necessary.
- Explain treatment procedures to patients to gain cooperation and allay fears.
Other job titles for this occupation (16)
CRRT (Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation Respiratory Therapist) · CRT (Certified Respiratory Therapist) · Diagnostics RRT (Diagnostics Registered Respiratory Therapist) · Infant RT (Infant Respiratory Therapist) · Licensed CRT (Licensed Certified Respiratory Therapist) · Licensed RT (Licensed Respiratory Therapist) · Registered Respiratory Care Practitioner (Registered RCP) · Registered Respiratory Practitioner · Respiratory Care Practitioner (RCP) · RRT (Registered Respiratory Therapist) · Hospital RT (Hospital Respiratory Therapist) · Inhalation Therapist · NICU RT (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Respiratory Therapist) · Oxygen Therapist · Travel RRT (Travel Registered Respiratory Therapist) · Travel RT (Travel Respiratory Therapist)