By the AHS Team (M.Sc), JKKN College of Allied Health Sciences · Reviewed by the Admission Office · Published 30 July 2026 · Last updated 30 July 2026
Quick answer (53 words): There is no B.Sc Pulmonology. Pulmonology is a doctor's specialty, reached through NEET, MBBS and MD. The course applicants mean is B.Sc Respiratory Therapy — three years plus a one-year internship, training the specialist who manages ventilation, oxygen therapy and airway support across a hospital.
Two words, two different careers, and the confusion sends people looking for a course that does not exist under that name.
Pulmonologist and respiratory therapist
Pulmonologist | Respiratory therapist | |
|---|---|---|
Entry | MBBS after NEET | 12th PCB, no NEET required |
Then | MD, often DM in pulmonary medicine | B.Sc Respiratory Therapy, 3 years + 1 year internship |
Total time | Roughly a decade after 12th | Four years including internship |
The work | Diagnoses lung disease, prescribes, plans treatment | Delivers and manages the ventilation and oxygen therapy that treatment depends on |
If your goal is to be a pulmonologist, this is not the route, and no allied health degree shortens the medical one. Saying so plainly loses us applicants and it is the honest thing to publish.
If your goal is to work with breathing, ventilators and critically ill patients, respiratory therapy puts you there in four years instead of ten. Different job, real career.
What a respiratory therapist actually does
The distinctive thing about this role: you are not tied to one department. You go where the breathing problems are.
Ventilator management — setting up, adjusting and troubleshooting mechanical ventilation in intensive care, and working with the team on weaning patients off support.
Oxygen therapy — selecting and managing delivery devices, and monitoring response.
Airway management support — assisting at intubation, maintaining airways, suctioning.
Nebulisation and aerosol therapy across wards.
Pulmonary function testing — spirometry and related tests in the diagnostic setting.
Arterial blood gas sampling and interpretation, where the unit's protocol allows.
Chest physiotherapy support and airway clearance techniques.
Emergency response — respiratory arrest is one of the situations you are called to.
The full course description is on the respiratory therapy page.
Why the role became important
Worth understanding, because it explains the demand.
Mechanical ventilation used to be managed almost entirely by doctors and nurses. As intensive care grew more technical, hospitals found that a dedicated specialist produced better outcomes — someone who knows the machines properly, watches the trends, and recognises early that a patient is deteriorating or ready to be weaned.
That is the job. It is a comparatively young discipline in India and it is growing, which is why the course exists and why hospitals recruit for it.
Who this suits
It suits you if you like applied physiology, you are comfortable with equipment that keeps people alive, you can move between departments and adapt to each, and you want to be the person a ward calls when they do not understand what they are seeing.
It suits you especially if you found respiration the most interesting part of your biology syllabus. That sounds like a small thing and it is a reliable predictor.
It does not suit you if you want a fixed desk and a fixed department. This role walks.
It does not suit you if you find critically ill patients distressing rather than absorbing. You will be with them regularly.
Where it sits among the other programmes
If you are choosing between the clinical disciplines:
Respiratory therapy — breathing, ventilation, across the hospital.
Critical care technology — the ICU as a whole, continuous, one unit.
Accident and emergency care — the emergency department, unplanned.
Cardiac technology — cardiac investigations and cath lab.
Operation theatre and anaesthesia — the surgical environment.
Respiratory therapy overlaps most with critical care and differs in a specific way: critical care is defined by a place, respiratory therapy by a system. One belongs to the ICU; the other follows the lungs wherever they are.
Batch 1's cardiac vs critical care vs respiratory therapy compares the three properly, and a normal working day describes the rhythm of each. All nine are listed on departments.
What the four years cover
Year one — anatomy, physiology and, centrally, respiratory physiology. Everything later depends on genuinely understanding gas exchange rather than memorising it.
Year two — equipment and pathology. How a ventilator works, what each mode does and why, oxygen delivery systems, and the diseases you will meet.
Year three — applied and supervised, in the ICU and on the wards, managing real patients under supervision.
The internship year — the closest thing to the job, and what employers ask about.
The graduates who do best are, almost without exception, the ones who understood year-one physiology properly. This is the discipline where the foundational year matters most, because a ventilator setting is applied physiology and nothing else.
Where the career goes
Hospital roles — intensive care units, respiratory and pulmonary units, emergency departments, sleep laboratories and pulmonary function labs.
Progression — senior therapist, then unit responsibility, then clinical education roles training juniors and ward staff.
Adjacent routes — medical device companies need application specialists who genuinely understand ventilation, and that is a well-trodden move for experienced therapists.
Postgraduate study varies by institution; batch 1's guide to higher study after allied health covers the routes.
The honest framing: this is a discipline where expertise is visible and portable. A therapist who is good with difficult ventilation cases is valuable in any hospital.
For the salary picture and the overseas routes, the site's respiratory therapy scope and salary guide is the page to read next.
The skills the job is actually built on
Worth naming, because they are not the ones an applicant expects from a course title.
Reading a trend, not a number. A single blood gas result means little. What matters is the direction it has moved over the last four hours, and whether the ventilator settings explain it. This is the core clinical skill and it takes the whole course to build.
Explaining machines to frightened people. A patient on non-invasive ventilation is wearing a tight mask and cannot speak. A family is watching a ventilator alarm and assuming the worst. Both need somebody calm to explain what is happening, and that person is usually you.
Knowing when to escalate. Respiratory deterioration is often gradual until it is sudden. The therapists who are valued are the ones who raise a concern an hour early rather than confirm one an hour late.
Working across departments without a home. You arrive in somebody else's unit, do something technical, and leave. That requires being useful quickly and being easy to work with.
None of these appears on a mark sheet. All of them decide whether you are the therapist a hospital keeps.
Two honest cautions
The role is not universally established. Respiratory therapy is a young discipline in India, and some smaller hospitals do not yet have dedicated posts — the work is absorbed by nursing and intensive care staff. Larger and more technical hospitals do have them, and the direction of travel is clear, but a graduate should expect to look at the bigger institutions first.
You will explain your job repeatedly. To patients, to families, sometimes to staff in departments that have not worked with a respiratory therapist before. That is tiring in the first year and it stops being an issue once you are established.
Neither is a reason to avoid the field. Both are reasons to choose the college with real ICU exposure, because that is where the role is understood.
Eligibility, cost and practicalities
12th with Physics, Chemistry and Biology, minimum 50% aggregate (40% SC/ST, 45% OBC).
Age 17 to 25, as on 31 December 2026. Indian and NRI eligible.
NEET is not mandatory — merit-based admission.
Three steps: online application with documents, document verification with originals, then fee payment and enrollment.
Management-quota fees across the nine programmes run Rs 60,000 to Rs 1,70,000 per year by programme, with government-quota seats at government norms and merit-based scholarships available — see what a year really costs.
A bus fleet covers 15+ routes across Namakkal, Salem, Erode, Tiruppur and surrounding towns with door-step pickup (transport); hostels are separate for men and women with 200+ rooms, attached bathrooms, mess, Wi-Fi, gym and 24/7 CCTV security (hostel).
The college publishes a 95% placement rate across programmes — its own published figure, not independently audited. See placements.
The other names people search
If you have typed any of these, you are looking for this course: B.Sc Pulmonology, B.Sc Respiratory Care, respiratory technician course, ventilator technician course, B.Sc RT, pulmonary technology.
The name to use when applying is B.Sc Respiratory Therapy. If other course names are unfamiliar, the abbreviations decoded covers the rest.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a B.Sc Pulmonology course?
No. Pulmonology is a doctor's specialty reached through NEET, MBBS and MD. The course applicants mean is B.Sc Respiratory Therapy, a three-year degree plus a one-year internship.
Can I become a pulmonologist after B.Sc Respiratory Therapy?
No. That route requires NEET, MBBS and postgraduate medical training. An allied health degree does not substitute for or shorten it.
What does a respiratory therapist do?
Manages mechanical ventilation, oxygen therapy, airway support, nebulisation and pulmonary function testing, and responds to respiratory emergencies — working across intensive care, wards and the emergency department rather than in one fixed unit.
Is respiratory therapy the same as critical care technology?
They overlap but differ. Critical care technology is defined by a place, the ICU. Respiratory therapy is defined by a system, and follows breathing problems wherever they are in the hospital.
Do I need NEET for B.Sc Respiratory Therapy?
No. NEET is not mandatory here and admission is merit based, with eligibility of 12th PCB at a minimum 50% aggregate, or 40% for SC/ST and 45% for OBC.
How long is the course?
Three years plus a one-year internship, the same structure as the other eight B.Sc programmes at this college.
Is there demand for respiratory therapists in India?
It is a comparatively young and growing discipline, created because intensive care became technical enough to need a dedicated specialist. Hospitals recruit for the role, though no college can promise an individual a post.
Searched "B.Sc Pulmonology" and want to know whether respiratory therapy is what you meant? The admission office at JKKN College of Allied Health Sciences will tell you straight — ahsincharge@jkkn.ac.in or +91 93458 55001, or see respiratory therapy.