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| Southwestern Community College’s Respiratory Therapy students who placed fourth at a recent national competition in Las Vegas are pictured with their advisors, from left: program coordinator Samantha Campbell of Clyde, Zac Short of Asheville, Justin Wilson of Asheville, Noah Jones of Candler, Benjamin Lackey of Franklin and clinical coordinator Brent Holland of Asheville. |
Las Vegas trips are supposed to be all about fun, and what could be more fun than placing high at a national competition?
That’s exactly what second-year students in Southwestern Community College’s respiratory therapy program accomplished Dec. 9-12 by finishing fourth in the American Association for Respiratory Care’s annual “Sputum Bowl.” It was the highest finish ever for a team representing North Carolina at the quiz-style contest, which this year included 40 teams from across the country.
Team members are Noah Jones of Candler, Benjamin Lackey of Franklin, Zac Short of Asheville and Justin Wilson of Asheville.
Team advisors are program coordinator Samantha Campbell of Clyde and clinical coordinator Brent Holland of Asheville.
“Samantha and I are so proud of this group,” Holland said. “They spent a lot of time studying, and they just worked so hard. We are really going to miss them; they’re due to graduate in May. I joked with Samantha that we need to find a way to fail them so they’ll stay around another year. In all seriousness, they represented North Carolina very well.”
PIMA Medical Institute from Colorado won the competition, which was set up in a tournament format where two teams squared off head-to-head with the winner advancing to the next round.
SCC’s team won its first few rounds but was eliminated shy of the championship round when judges voted 3-2 against accepting their response to a highly technical question about mechanical ventilation.
“We answered correctly, but we didn’t use a specific word they were looking for – we used a synonym,” Jones said. “It was disappointing to know we could have gone on, but the team that won was very good. They’d been working on this from the start of their first semester. We just started preparing for this contest in August.”
By winning the North Carolina contest in September, the SCC squad had its travel and hotel expenses covered by the North Carolina Society for Respiratory Care. The SCC Foundation paid the team’s registration fees.
Besides participating in the contest, Southwestern’s students attended an international conference that included lectures on the latest advances in their field.
“It was very educational,” Jones said. “We met students from other colleges and learned a lot. It was a great experience.”
For more information about respiratory therapy and SCC’s other programs, visit southwesterncc.edu, call828.339.4000 or swing by Southwestern’s Jackson Campus in Sylva.
