This Friday nearly 1,000 respiratory healthcare professionals will meet on the sunny gold coast for this years TSANZSRS conference.

Convenor Michael Putt tells the limbic the focus for this year’s conference will be the impact of lung health and disease, including lung development, malignancy and other respiratory conditions.

Interventional pulmonology and sleep medicine themes will also be running through the meeting, he says.

Some International perspectives

Delegates can look forward to learning from many overseas experts who will be speaking on a wide range of topics.

Charles Irvin from Vermont will talk about the clinical utility of respiratory function tests. There’s also an opportunity to ‘have a chat with Charlie’ on how to integrate your research with your clinical practice.

Bert Brunekreef from Utrecht University in The Netherlands will run a session on what birth cohorts have taught us about asthma as well as presenting to the conference the results from the European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects.

Maureen George from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing will present sessions on asthma and patients’ beliefs and behaviours.

Must see sessions

We asked Michael what the must see sessions were before realising it was probably like asking him to pick a favourite child. We’ve included some of his suggested highlights below but there’s many more great sessions set out in this year’s programme.

Saturday

The conference starts off with a themed symposium session on environmental effects on lung health. Geoff Morgan from the University of Sydney will speak on the interventions to reduce the health impact of air pollution on mortality, Michael Abramson from Monash University will talk about the role of the CAR-CRE and Rakesh Kumar from the UNSW will explore the effects air pollution has on epithelial cells (Saturday at 1330-1350).

Fergus Gleeson from Oxford University in the UK will run the concurrent themed symposium on malignant pleural diseases, which includes a talk from Gary Lee from Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in WA on the advances and controversies of managing malignant pleural effusions.

Later on in the day delegates will be treated to a state of the art review on interventional bronchoscopy. Felix Herth from the University of Heidelberg in Germany will discuss novel endobronchial techniques of lung volume reduction and Martin Phillips from Sir Charles Gardiner will address bronchial thermoplasty for severe asthma (1530-1700).

Sunday

Charles Irvin will speak to delegates about whether we really do know everything there is to know on the mechanics of obstructive lung disease (0830-1000). This session is closely followed by a plenary session on the advances and controversies in pleural medicine (1030-1200).

Later that afternoon Matthew Ellis from The Alfred Hospital in Victoria will take to the stage to hold a master class on cardiopulmonary testing. (1300-1315).

 Monday

Morning sessions include several presentations on the clinical controversies in NIV and at 1pm the Lung Foundation TSANZ and Wunderly Oration will present their awards.

Tuesday

And for those who have just spent many months working on their grant submissions there’s a session on Tuesday morning on how to navigate the pathway to a successful grant application (Tuesday 0830-1000).

So what’s new?

As well as updating knowledge delegates can also expect to learn something new. According to Michael the sessions to particularly watch out for include:

• New clues into the pathogenesis of mesothelioma
• Evaluating interventions to reduce health impacts of air pollution on mortality
• Mechanisms of respiratory health effects of air pollution
• Advances in the management of pleural infection

Don’t forget the poster hall

At the limbic we have found many research gems lurking in poster halls at various conferences so don’t forget to give the hall a visit.

Time to get social

There will be many opportunities to get social with colleagues at this year’s conference. The welcome reception will be held on Saturday at 6pm. And there’s no need to brush the dust off that dinner suit or cocktail frock for the Gala dinner on Tuesday evening because the dress code is casual with a beach theme. *We advise all delegates to leave their speedos at home*.

The Lung Foundation is holding a fun run on Monday morning. The circuit is a quick 5km (timed) run around the park. Click here for more information on venue and times.

We’re new on the scene

So please make sure you stop by stand 25 in the exhibition hall to say hello.  We’ll also be tweeting news throughout the conference so please follow @the_limbic and #TSANZSRS2015