A respiratory therapist is not a nurse. They are two distinct healthcare professions with different education paths, different licensing exams, different credentials, and different scopes of practice. Respiratory therapists specialize in treating patients with breathing and cardiopulmonary disorders, while registered nurses provide broad, whole-body patient care across nearly every medical specialty. The two roles overlap in some daily tasks and often work side by side in hospitals, which is likely why the confusion exists.
What Each Role Actually Does
A respiratory therapist (RT) focuses specifically on the lungs and airways. Their typical workday involves examining patients with breathing difficulties, performing tests to measure lung capacity, managing ventilators, clearing airways, delivering oxygen therapy, and teaching patients how to use respiratory equipment at home. They consult directly with physicians to build treatment plans for conditions like asthma, COPD, pneumonia, and sleep apnea.
A registered nurse (RN) has a much broader scope. Nurses evaluate patients across all body systems, coordinate treatment plans, administer medications, draw blood, monitor vital signs, update medical records, and educate patients and families about a wide range of health conditions. An RN in a cardiac unit, a pediatric ward, or an emergency room will handle very different cases on any given shift, but the underlying skill set is general patient care.
Where the two roles overlap is in tasks like monitoring patient progress, recording medical information, running certain diagnostic tests, and collaborating with doctors. In an ICU, for example, a nurse and a respiratory therapist may both be at the same patient’s bedside. The nurse manages the patient’s overall care, medications, and communication with the care team, while the RT manages the ventilator settings, airway clearance, and breathing treatments. They complement each other rather than duplicate each other.
Different Education and Training
Respiratory therapists must graduate from a respiratory therapy program accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Respiratory Care (CoARC). An associate degree is the minimum, though the field is increasingly moving toward a bachelor’s degree as the standard. Coursework is heavily concentrated on cardiopulmonary anatomy, airway management, ventilator technology, and related sciences.
Registered nurses can enter the field with either an Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) or a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN). A BSN typically requires about 120 credit hours and combines classroom learning, lab work, and supervised clinical rotations. Nursing curricula cover a much wider range of topics: pharmacology, pediatrics, obstetrics, mental health, surgical care, and more, because nurses need to treat the whole patient rather than one organ system.
Different Licensing Exams
The credentials and exams for each profession are entirely separate. Respiratory therapists earn the Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT) credential by passing two exams administered by the National Board for Respiratory Care (NBRC). The first is a 160-question multiple-choice test covering entry-level respiratory care competencies, taken over three hours. The second is a Clinical Simulation Examination with 22 scenario-based problems completed in four hours. Both exams must be passed to earn the RRT.
Nurses take the NCLEX-RN, a licensing exam administered through the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. Each state’s board of nursing handles the actual license, and requirements can vary slightly by state. An RT credential and a nursing license are not interchangeable. Holding one does not qualify you to practice the other.
Where Each Professional Works
Nurses work in virtually every healthcare setting: hospitals, clinics, schools, nursing homes, home health agencies, public health departments, and more. Their generalist training makes them adaptable to almost any patient population.
Respiratory therapists work in more specialized settings, though the list is broader than most people realize. You’ll find RTs in hospital ICUs, emergency rooms, operating rooms, and neonatal units. Outside the hospital, they work in sleep laboratories, pulmonary rehabilitation programs, skilled nursing facilities, home health, air transport and ambulance programs, physician offices, and even university teaching positions. Every hospital respiratory care department also has managerial roles overseeing personnel and budgets.
Salary and Job Growth
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for respiratory therapists was $80,450 in 2024, and employment is projected to grow 12 percent from 2024 to 2034, which is much faster than the average for all occupations. The aging population and rising rates of chronic respiratory disease are driving that demand.
Registered nurses earned a median annual wage of $93,600 in 2024. Nursing is one of the largest healthcare professions in the country, and demand remains strong across most specialties and regions.
Switching Between the Two Careers
Because the two professions are separate, switching from one to the other requires going back to school and passing the appropriate licensing exam. Bridge programs do exist to shorten the process. Herzing University, for example, offers an RT-to-BSN bridge program that takes about 28 months and a shorter RT-to-ASN option that takes about 20 months. These programs give respiratory therapists credit for their existing clinical knowledge while filling in the nursing-specific coursework they still need. Similar programs exist for nurses wanting to become RTs, though they are less common.
The two careers attract different types of people. If you prefer deep specialization in one body system and enjoy working with ventilators, airways, and lung diagnostics, respiratory therapy is the more focused path. If you want flexibility to move between specialties throughout your career, from labor and delivery to oncology to emergency medicine, nursing offers that breadth.