does this make any sense?

BSN educated nurse wants to pursue a masters degree in respiratory care in the hope that she will be more marketable when applying for jobs at hospitals.

She does enjoy respiratory care and doesnt mind specializing in this particular field. However, would it not make more sense for her to just do her masters in nursing?
hard to say. Depends on your market and what you want to do. I think you will have to decide which discipline you prefer. The knowledge transfers from one to the other but the responsibility does not. So if you are working as RT you cannot do any nursing, and vice versa. Nurses sometimes give breathing treatments and make ventilator adjustments, but the responsibility is frequently with the RT.

My father actually has dual degrees in nursing and respiratory therapy, although not a masters. Anyway, the company he works for sets up patients in their homes for CPAP, BIPAP and everything else RT related. For his patients he is both their nurse and their RT. It makes it easier for his patients to have one person fill two roles, one less phone number to remember Like the previous poster said, it depends on the position the person is interested in pursuing .

The more broad your education is the more marketable you are. How many leadership roles do you see that ask for a Masters in RT or how many RT leaders have you ever seen? I can't throw a rock without hitting a MSN in a leadership role. Registered Nurses are by design and traditition the leaders of the interdisciplinary healthcare team.

Do not see where this would be beneficial.

There are a few jobs for which the combo would be helpful (e.g. working for a home care company) ... but not enough to justify the expense. Unless you can get the education for free, I would think you would be better-off investing your resources elsewhere. It would certainly not be worth borrowing money to do it -- unless you really want to be a RT instead of a nurse.

A Masters in either speciality will open up doors to research/teaching/ corporate development positions; it just depends in which field the nurse really wants to specialize in.