February 18th Midlands Region “Winter Conference”

by Selma Watson

The Midlands Region hosted an educational event at Lexington Medical Center on February 18^th, 2011.  The meeting was well attended and represented students, college faculty and practitioners.  There were also several vendors on site for the event, Monaghan Medical, who sponsored two lectures from Ken Thigpen, who delivered two inspiring lectures, “Getting a Yes When the Economics Say No” and “Respiratory Care – Time For Considering What Lies Ahead.” Hill-Rom sponsored a lecture from Michael Hewitt, who spoke on “New Trends in Volume Augmentation and Airway Clearance”.

Draeger Medical and Lexington Medical Center also sponsored vendor booths.

Other speakers included Dr. Joel Sussman, whose topic was “Life Style Issues including Sleep—What are we doing to ourselves and our children?”. Garrett Galloway gave a talk entitled “An RCP’s Role in the Diagnosis and Management of Sleep Disordered Breathing”. Carole Benson spoke on the topic “Pulmonary Rehab Advocacy: Through the Eyes of a Patient”.  Carole is a new addition to our Board of Directors as our Patient Advocate/consumer member.

At this event, Carole talked about her experiences as a patient since being diagnosed with COPD; she also outlined her goals for her participation with the SCSRC and asked for participation from the audience.  Some of the ideas that came from the audience included: working to close the gap between the hospital discharge planner and the home care provider; developing patient advocacy chapter to assist patients in decision making; earlier diagnosis of COPD via community education; COPD education in assisted living facilities.

The chair of the event committee, Selma Watson, would like to say a special thank you to all who had a part in making this event a reality.  Stay tuned: plans are already underway for a February 2012 conference!