Global partnerships...greater strength and knowledge for us all

Several months ago, PHA announced the U.S. and international recipients of PHA's 2011 Tom Lantos Innovation in Community Service Awards.  PH Israel was one of the awardees.  Here is a note from Dr. Yosef  Gotlieb to PHA's Senior vice president, Adrienne Dern, on the outcome of their project.

Dear Adrienne,


It is with pleasure that I am writing to let you know that the conference sponsored by the Israel Pulmonary Hypertension Association on Thursday, June 16th was a resounding success.

Nearly a hundred participants came to the meeting on "Pulmonary Hypertension: Profile of the Disease" to hear Israel's top experts lecture on the various aspects of PH:   symptomatology, typology, diagnostics, therapies, and research horizons for treatment and diagnosis. The number of those in attendance was high despite a doctor's strike which required many senior physicians to substitute for younger doctors in the clinics and wards. Despite this, the auditorium was packed and we found ourselves having to add chairs throughout the first two sessions.

A panel on the complexity of care included a family physician, a mental health and support group worker, the director of a pulmonary rehabilitation unit at a children's hospital. a medical technology professional, and myself representing the patient's perspective. A vigorous dialogue ensued between pulmonary specialists and primary care physicians. The session ended with the promise of continuing exchange and engagement; as this was a major goal of the conference, we were very pleased to see this take place. We, the organizers and the participants who provided feedback, left the conference with the feeling that that the Israel PH community had been significantly expanded and strengthened by the conference and that there would be continuing impact on the target group we had sought to influence, namely, the primary care community.

Of those who attended the event, which was conducted in a decorous setting at a seafront Tel Aviv hotel, most were clinicians (physicians and nurses); a number of professors and heads of departments were also present. We have documented the meeting (some of the initial photos are attached) in stills and video and look forward to sharing our experience with other PH associations. We have already begun discussing possibilities for the next event to be held in what we hope will be a continuing series of meetings focused on professional and patient education.
On behalf of the Israel Pulmonary Hypertension Associationand myself, I want to reiterate how grateful we are to the sponsors of Tom Lantos Innovation in Community Service Awards and to Representative Lantos' family for enabling us to hold the event. Further, I wish to express again our gratitude to you and the Pulmonary Hypertension Association for facilitating our receipt of the funding necessary to implement this project.

We are much inspired and encouraged by the Pulmonary Hypertension Association. May you and the Association go from strength to strength.

Truly yours,

Yosef

Yosef Gotlieb, PhD

There's a lot more to read about the gvibrant and growing global PH community in the International section of PHA's website!