Rhonchi

Viet Nam News
The German Messer Industrial Gases Group’s Dr Hans Messer Foundation donated medical equipment valued at US$20,000 to the National Hospital for Obstetrics and Gynaecology’s Neonatal Department in Ha Noi yesterday.

The batch of five respiratory therapy or continuous positive air pressure (CPAP) machines, six phototherapy machines, three pulse oximeter monitors, three infant warmers and three incubators was presented by the group’s CEO, Stefan Messer.

The donation forms part of the Breath of Life programme of the non-governmental East Meet West (EMW) Foundation. The programme aims at reducing mortality rates among premature babies in Viet Nam. It is estimated that over 128,000 babies are born prematurely in Viet Nam each year and of those, 10 per cent suffer respiratory distress. About 12,000 babies will die and many more suffer brain damage from oxygen deprivation unless equipment, especially CPAP machines — standard equipment in developed countries — is available for intervention.

I like to see this kind of humanitarian donation.

Tracing Lung Ailments That Rose With 9/11 Dust – New York Times
After nearly five years, it is still too early for these doctors, scientists and forensic pathologists to say with certainty whether any long-term cancer threat came with exposure to the toxic cloud unleashed by the trade center collapse. But there are already clear signs that the dust, smoke and ash that responders breathed in have led to an increase in diseases that scar the lungs and reduce their capacity to take in and let out air.

The Fire Department tracked a startling increase in cases of a particular lung scarring disease, known as sarcoidosis, among firefighters, which rose to five times the expected rate in the two years after Sept. 11. Though that rate has declined, doctors worry that the disease may be lurking in other firefighters. Experts who regularly see workers who were at ground zero in the 48 hours after the towers’ collapse expect monitoring to show many more cases of lung- scarring disorders among that group.

New evidence also suggests that workers who arrived later or worked on the periphery may also be susceptible to debilitating lung ailments.

Lung Cancer May Differ by Gender – Forbes.com
Women may experience lung cancer in ways that differ from men, a new study finds.

Many women recently diagnosed with lung cancer have normal lung function and better results on lung function tests than newly diagnosed male lung cancer patients, say researchers reporting in the May issue of the journal Chest.

Position: Respiratory
Department/Area: Respiratory Therapy
Number of Openings: 15
Need Open: YES
Incentives Offered: NO
Shift: 12-hr shifts
Start Date: * ASAP
End Date: 3 months and 6 month assignments
Hiring Stage: Accepting profile/initial file submission
Certifications: AHA CPR
Comments/Requirements: PICU experience
Email your resume to info@synergystaffing.org

This is a pretty cool idea:

Games Spotlight Healthy Lungs – News – Burke Connection – Connection Newspapers
This is the first Lung Games program in Virginia. “Our goal is to have these games throughout Virginia (at other lung rehab programs),” Montilla said.
Inova Fairfax has one of 23 lung rehabilitation programs in Virginia, Montilla said. Staff for it includes a pulmonologist, a nutritionist, a psychologist and several nurses and therapists.
Along with providing guided exercise to patients, the initial 10-week pulmonary rehabilitation program teaches patients how to use exercise machinery and medicines, and provide information about insurance policies for their disease. They also learn how to interpret their own pulmonary function data. Finally, they learn to control the panic that sometimes strikes when they have difficulty breathing.