Military Career

Having joined the MS Army National Guard while in high school, I became a combat field medic. This training was done at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, TX. I later received the Army’s Respiratory Specialist equivalent after finishing RT school. I stayed in the National Guard for six years, serving with a surgical support hospital and a tank battalion.

Professional Career and Education

My career in Respiratory Care began in 1982, as a student at Northeast MS Community College in Booneville, MS. I graduated in 1983 with a degree in Respiratory Therapy becoming credentialed as a certified respiratory therapist (CRT) in 1984. I later pursued registry (RRT 1988) and the Neonatal-Pediatric Specialty (NPS 1991). I have worked as a respiratory therapist in various capacities, including:

general respiratory care
critical care of adults, pediatric and neonatal patients
ECMO
ground and aeromedical transport of pediatric and neonatal patients
management as a supervisor, operations manager and director
clinical educator
medical simulation designer
instructional designer

In 2001, I completed an Associate Degree in Graphic Arts, at State Tech in Memphis, TN, with a concentration in multimedia production. During this time, I learned the basics of web design, photo and video editing and some of the tools used for the production of content for distribution to the internet, CD, DVD, and other presentation formats.

In 2001 I became the Chief Transport Therapist for PediFlite, the neonatal and pediatric transport team of LeBonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, TN.

In 2005, I finished a Masters Degree in Instructional Design at the University of Memphis. During this time I learned the basics of instructional design: analysis, design, development and evaluation (ADDIE). I learned prior and current software platforms used to complete these tasks.

I have 18 years experience of blending instructional design for healthcare, designing and creating education programs and documents, training modules and clinical simulation programs.

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