World Bronchiectasis Day Question Time

Bridget was diagnosed with bronchiectasis in 2014 and has lived with bronchiectasis symptoms for about 25 years. She is a member of the bronchiectasis patient support group in Edinburgh and joined the Bronchiectasis PAG as a result of James Chalmers coming to speak to the group. 

In her professional life she worked for more than 30 years as a nurse in critical care, combining clinical work with research. This experience showed her how important patient and family input can be in improving care. Her own research included patients and healthy volunteers and she has participated as a patient in a number of research studies.

She values the opportunities and support the PAG offers for developing and providing information and education resources on bronchiectasis for patients and professionals and contributing to the research agenda.

Rachael is a member of the ELF Bronchiectasis Patient Advisory Group, where she actively contributes to raising awareness and supporting the bronchiectasis community. She is also a theatre and fiction writer and a literary translator who lives between the United Kingdom and Portugal.

Dr Arietta Spinou is a Lecturer in Cardiorespiratory Physiotherapy Practice and Research at King’s College London, UK. She is a Specialist Respiratory Physiotherapist and has extensive research experience, with a special interest in bronchiectasis.

As part of her PhD work, Dr Spinou developed the Bronchiectasis Health Questionnaire, and for the first time objectively assessed cough frequency in a group of people with bronchiectasis.
Currently, Dr Spinou co-leads the ERS Task Force for the airway clearance techniques in bronchiectasis.

Michal Shteinberg received her MD and a PhD in biochemistry from the Technion-Israel institute of technology. She trained in internal medicine and pulmonology, with a Fellowship in bronchiectasis and adult CF.

Prof. Shteinberg is Head of Bronchiectasis and Adult Cystic Fibrosis Unit, Carmel Medical Center, and the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, the B. Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Haifa, Israel.

She is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Faculty of medicine at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and a member of the executive committee of the Israeli Society for Tuberculosis and mycobacterial diseases.

Her main research interests are bronchiectasis and its overlap with other airway diseases, mainly rhinosinusitis, and connective tissue diseases, as well as adult CF.

Prof. Shteinberg is a member of EMBARC management and heading Patient Activities Work package.

Dr Raja Dhar is the Director and Head of the Pulmonology Department at C K group of Hospitals, Kolkata.

Dr Dhar is also the National Secretary of the Indian Chest Society and Director of the Asia Pacific Alliance for Control of Influenza (APACI).

He has published over 200 publications in national and international journals.

Amelia Shoemark is a Researcher at the University of Dundee. Her research focuses on bronchiectasis with a specialist interest is in the role of cilia in the lungs. She is part of the EMBARC2 committee where she leads the EMBARC BRIDGE project. An international project to understand different types of infection and inflammation in the lungs in bronchiectasis in order to try to target the right treatments to the right people.

Amelia conducted her PhD at Imperial College London and trained as a clinical scientist at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London where she continues to lead the diagnostic laboratories for the inherited disorder Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia.

Dr Pieter Goeminne is a respiratory physician in Saint-Nicholas, Belgium.

His PhD defence was in non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis. He is co-author of many publications on the topic of bronchiectasis, such as the ERS bronchiectasis guidelines.

He is also Board member of the European bronchiectasis registry EMBARC and regular reviewer for high impact journals on bronchiectasis. His further professional interests include air pollution and infectious disease.