We have 16 beds in each adult ICU, and there is one therapist per ICU. I have seen a few times where there is a vent in every room, but the average is 12-14. Sometimes we have a third therapist that splits time helping betweent the two ICU's, but not always. Our shift supervisors rarely help. In fact, we have decided that the busier we are, the less we see them! I really believe they don't want to see how hard we are working. They tend to come around on the rare days that things are slower.
This department tends to use therapists until they are burnt out, then spit them out.
Anyway, I'm taking it as a learning opportunity. I feeling pretty burned out though. Don't know how much longer I want to work at this pace.

V3, very well put!!!!
That is a typical day..? I like the "meter reader" label. Its unfortunate that your RT's can not pay the attention to your patients that they need.
We check Q4... 24 bed MICU with a 16 BED Open Heart Unit (2 therapists in MICU - normally and 1 in the OHU)

Are all your therapists as busy as you? Or are you getting dumped on?

Most days everyone is equally busy. Of course, like any dept. there are always those that are more motivated, and those that are less. The workload is always unreasonable though.
I don't want to come of on this forum as a whiner. I don't mind working hard. My dilemma is that I think it crosses the line of safety at this hospital, and I have never worked anywhere else. I have nothing to compare it to. I'm just trying to get an idea of what other therapists do at their jobs.

I feel for you newrt. I have worked in two hospitals the last 5 years. They are both pretty busy, after alot of shifts I feel like my head could explode when I am leaving the hospital. The reason I asked "are the other therapist as busy" is because departments can be clicky and the better assignments go to those in the click (I call it the buddy system). Sometimes the new therapist get taken advantage of if they are not in the click. I don't think you are whining I have experienced what you are going through. Call your coworkers and or supervisor for help when it gets crazy.

We are able to check all new and weaning vents Q1 for 8hrs, we never check a vent less then Q2hrs. We have 1 16 bed MICU and 1 16 bed SICU. We are able to do this by making the supervisors take a work load each and every shift and there are always 2 supervisors on call in the event that it is busy enough that a vent might not get checked correctly. don't get me wrong we run and go many days without the lunch break, but RT makes the calls on a vent not a resident or a nurse, the pulmonary docs give us our head.

Q2H here

We created a triage for vents. It's been slow going getting staff to adjust to going from Q2 checks to longer. Depending on the patients acuity, the frequency varies. A drug overdose intubated for airway protection only would be checked twice a shift, where an inhalation injury patient on a VDR would get Q2 checks. I'm hearing that some hospitals are doing Qshift checks (documentation obviously) and suction and changes in between.

We go Q3-4 depending on acuity. All our ICUs are 12 beds and we have 2 Medical, I Cardio-Thoracic, 1 Neuro, 1 Cardiac, 1 Surgical, and 1 Trauma Icu. There's usually 1 therapist per unit and you are "expected" to participate in physician rounds which can take as long as 2 hours. We are a teaching hospital and some attendings can get pretty talkative. We also work 12 hour shifts but the staff that has a lighter load will always stop by your unit to see if you need help to get caught up. The supervisors will call you and cover for you if you didn't get a chance to eat lunch. I've been doing this since 1974 and have worked in over a dozen different hospitals. Only 1 of them had the kind of environment you describe and the staff got together and started charging overtime if they didn't get lunch. We also started triaging the patients and actively calling physicians to eliminate therapy that was not indicated, or to change folks from Q4 to QID and stuff like that. Although things did get better, the managementwas very confrontational and I left after about 6 months. Hang in there. There are a lot of good places to work. Just make sure you interview your next employer about such things as concurrent therapy, the number of proceedures a therapist is expected to do per shift (24 per 8 hr shift is fairly standard), and how they cover for meals when it's busy. I have walked out of interviews and told the managers that they didn't seem like the kind of organization I would be interested in working work. Just remember they are buying your skill and you don't have to sell it to them if the price is not right for what they are asking you to do.

One, you need to find a new job. Two, this type of excessive workload only contributes to the shortages in health care. In our facility we take a max. of 8 vents per RT. Third, if they are not paying you for your interupted lunch you should contact the state labor relations board as it is illegal.