Tuesday, September 30, we met with leadership, which included senior leadership, from the New York State Education Department, to discuss the progress of the academic advancement to a Bachelor of Science in Respiratory Therapy initiative. Attending the meeting were Katherine Herlihy, Esq., Benjamin Eddy, Director of Government Relations at Whiteman, Ostermann & Hanna LLP, Brandi Ewing, President of the NYSSRC and Stephen G. Smith, Vice President of the NYSSRC and Co-Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Academic Advancement of the Respiratory Care Profession in NYS. The members of SED who attended the meeting include Owen Donovan, Assistant Commissioner, Professional Licensing & Practice, Office of Professions, Lindsey Facteau, Office of Governmental Relations, Thania Fernandez, Counsel w/Office of Professions, Nikki Stewart, Counsel w/Office of Professions, Kent Sopris, Office of Governmental Relations, Paul Thompson, RT Licensure Board Executive Secretary, and David Wiech, Office of Professions staff. As you can see from the members of SED who attended the meeting that they are very interested in our initiative and wanted to ask us several questions concerning the progress of the bill and their concerns. President Ewing and I spoke openly and without hesitation, answering their questions and concerns. The meeting lasted for roughly an hour and was quite a comprehensive discussion.
The plan after the meeting was to give SED a month to digest our comprehensive answers to their questions and to digest our answers to their concerns. Since we initiated this project back in 2019, I believe this is the fourth or fifth time that we have met with SED to discuss our initiative, and that this was an extremely positive meeting.
I emailed Katherine Herlihy, Esq., to see if she has received any response from SED. She had informed me that we have not heard yet from SED. We are hoping that we have a much more enhanced response from SED and that we can move forward. Depending on their response, I indicated to Kate that we need to come up with a plan for moving the bill forward with the next legislative session. We are looking for SED’s response to our meeting to see 1) if they will become partners and help us move this endeavor forward and/or 2) if not, we need to plan our next move forward.
