First of all, I'd like to thank you very much for your vitally important support for our Society and your great cooperation with the Education Committee. In addition, I send my sincere thanks to Dr David C L Lam, my predecessor as chair of the Committee, for his great job editing the APSR Bulletin for many years. Through his great cooperation, I succeeded his position right after the APSR 2018 annual congress in Taipei.

As you are aware, we're in an era when the world has been changing very rapidly in such a short time. The amount of information has increased exponentially over in the last decade, where changes on the other side of the world can be observed here instantly. Medical advances are no exception. Academic information arrives, though the actual medical practice is highly dependent on the domestic economic situation.

The role of the Education Committee is to cooperate with APSR members, en bloc member societies and multiple Assemblies, and distribute accurate information to the right place. Currently, as information spreads beyond national borders, we want to share information beyond our medical area while correcting the differences in values.

Needless to say, I'll strive to improve the respiratory pathology and medical practice of the Asia-Pacific region. From this point of view, I believe the APSR Bulletin is one of the most important publications to share such valuable information with you.

Finally, on behalf of the Committee, I wish you all a wonderful holiday season and happy and productive 2019. I really look forward to work closely with you, and welcome any news from you.

Enjoy your New Year holiday!

Arata Azuma
Chairperson, APSR Education Committee

Here's the start of an interactive map which we hope will eventually provide a useful resource of data for your research.

apsresp.org/education/asia-pacific-health/map.html

This beta test version needs more data and we'd welcome details of any source of reliable data for adding to the map.

Please send ideas, suggestions, and data sources to APSRinfo@theapsr.org.

The APSR assemblies today are very different from when they were first formed.

They have evolved in both size and function, and it's time to re-assess whether we need more assemblies, or merge some that overlap, to provide better patient care.

Click the signboard to tell us what you think.

Watch this 36-second video clip
of Dr Nobuhiro Tanabe,
Head of the Pulmonary Circulation Assembly

This new initiative is due to launched over the next couple of months.

Please contact your Assembly Head with any items or topics of interest relating to your assembly,

As expected, the Taiwan Society of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, ensured the Congress in Taipei was a tremendous success with delegates from over 40 countries across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

The president of APSR2018, Dr Chong-Jen Yu, and the president of TSPCCM, Dr Meng-Chih Lin, reported:

(click photo to enlarge)

Dr Irene Rosellen P Tan, RMT, MD, from the Philippine General Hospital, was the official Congress Correspondent and regularly tweeted and uploaded messages into social media, posting "blow-by-blow updates of the events".

Perhaps unexpectedly, she was able to meet some of the most prominent respirologists from around the world and is shown on the right with the APSR President, Dr Fong. Her report indicates she thoroughly enjoyed the congress and meeting so many interesting people

Hundreds of other photos were taken at the congress and they will appear on the APSR website soon

Thank you for coming, for getting involved, and for sending feedback of how much you enjoyed the Taipei Congress. Thank you especially for the valuable comments on how we can improve things for future congresses.

The next congress will be 14-17 November 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam; a popular and exotic location for you to broaden your expertise, share research with your peers, and find valuable new contacts from the thousands of other delegates.

The congress website should be online soon, and meanwhile, updates will be posted on the APSR website

After Hanoi the 26th Congress on 15-18 October 2020 will be in Kyoto, Japan, a city chosen for its popularity at the previous congress there in 2006, and on a date when you can enjoy the spectacular autumn colours at that time of year.

And then the 27th Congress on 18-21 November 2021 in Seoul, Republic of Korea, for which the organisers are already considering ideas for the scientific programme.

Great things ahead!

Dr Matsunaga

Dr Eng

Dr Philip Eng has now completed his two-year term as chair of the Central Congress Committee, a most challenging role tackled most successfully. He has worked tirelessly to ensure the 2017 congress in Sydney and the 2018 congress in Taipei were conducted at the highest-possible standard. Liaising with those two Local Congress Committees, the two congress organising companies and venues in different countries, 16 APSR assemblies, the other major global respiratory societies, major global industry sponsors, and of course the hundreds of speakers and thousands of congress delegates, it is truly amazing that the congresses ran so smoothly!

He has now passed the role to the committee's chair-elect Dr Kazuto Matsunaga who, like Dr Eng, has been actively involved in running the APSR for many years. We are confident that you will thoroughly enjoy and benefit from the congresses ahead.

Dr Azuma

Dr Lam

Dr David Lam has now handed over his position as chair of the Education Committee to the chair-elect, Dr Arata Azuma.

Dr Lam has been on the Education Committee for ten years; the past eight being the committee's chair. During that time, he has increased the membership of the committee and created a strong team. In addition to managing educational projects (most often single-handedly), he has been Editor-in-Chief of Respiratory Updates for the past eight years, and coordinator of this monthly Bulletin, making sure that every issue over the past ten years has been produced and distributed on time. He provided valuable advice in the creation of the Teaching Library and other projects, but has not restricted himself to these in-house activities. For example, he has given advice and support for many workshops such as the 27 ESAPS that have taken place all over the Asia-Pacific region. All this, in addition to is regular work as a practicing physician, researcher, consultant and other important responsibilities.

Dr Azuma is fortunate that the Committee and its activities he inherits are so well established, but he will still need and appreciate your support to continue the work.

Dr Lam (6th from the left) receives his certificate of appreciation from APSR President Dr Kwun Fong
(Click image to enlarge)

Dr Eng (7th from the right) receives his certificate of appreciation from APSR President Dr Kwun Fong
(Click image to enlarge)

We are delighted to launch this new series with a tribute to the late Ann Janet Woolcock, prepared by Dr Sandra Anderson who delivered the Woolcock Memorial Lecture at the APSR 2018 Congress in Taipei.

This series complements our APSR Members' Honour Roll, on which as a member, you are welcome to add your appreciation of your mentor(s) at any time.

Recollections of the early research by Ann J Woolcock MD FRACP

I was introduced to Ann in Sydney in 1970 when I was briefly home on a visit. I was living in London at the time studying exercise-induced asthma in the Department of Paediatrics at the Brompton Hospital. Later Ann visited me at the Brompton and we spoke about her early research in lung volumes in asthmatics during an exacerbation. Her findings had influenced me to make the same measurements before and after exercise had provoked an acute attack of asthma.

Ann had received her Bachelor of Medicine degree from the University of Adelaide but the research for her MD degree was carried out at the University of Sydney and the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPAH) with Professor John Read in the Department of Medicine in the mid 1960's. Ann had the opportunity to measure, by helium dilution, the lung volumes of patients hospitalised for asthma. She reported, for the first time, that the obstruction observed in the asthmatics was associated with marked lung hyperinflation with increases in total lung & functional residual capacities. She repeated the lung volume measurements over a number of days and reported resolution of the hyperinflation, after treatment but in the absence of changes in spirometry in some patients. (Woolcock AJ & Read J Lancet 1965;2:(7426):1323-5, & J Am J Med 1966;41(2):259-73). She also showed that this hyperinflation was associated with a loss of lung elastic recoil, another new finding. (Woolcock AJ & Read J Am Rev Respir Dis 1968;98(5)788-94).

After she had finished her MD she travelled to Montreal to work with Dr Peter Macklem at McGill University. She performed some important studies in animals, the end-result of which gave insight into the frequency dependence of compliance. (Woolcock AJ et al J Clin Invest 1969,48(6):1097-106).

In 1977 she wrote an important article on inhaled drugs in the preventions of asthma (Woolcock AJ Am Rev Respir Dis 1977;115(2):191-4). From her studies in New Guinea Ann had become interested in epidemiology particularly in the frequency of asthma in the community. I joined her study on the prevalence of bronchial hyperresponsiveness (BHR) in the Busselton cohort in 1981. This involved the inhalation of histamine in increasing doses from a hand-held nebuliser until the FEV₁ had fallen by 20%. This rapid method was very suitable to use for epidemiological studies and had been developed in Ann's lab in Sydney (Yan K, Salome C Woolcock AJ Thorax 1983;38(10):760-5) This method allowed a small group of us to investigate 916 subjects in just 14 days. (Woolcock AJ et al Thorax 1987; 42(5):361-8.)

An important contribution of Ann's was her identification of a plateau in the airway response of normal subjects to increasing doses of bronchoconstricting agents. The last study that we were both involved in was the inhibitory effect of inhaled cortico-steroid therapy treatment on the response to both to inhaled histamine and inhaled mannitol (Leuppi JD et al Am J Res Crit Care Med 2001;163:406-12).

Ann's contribution to respiratory medicine over 35 years was quite extraordinary – but then she was quite an extraordinary lady.

Prepared by Sandra D Anderson AM, PhD, DSc, MD (Hon)

• Principal Hospital Scientist Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine,
  Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Camperdown NSW
  1979-2009
• Part time 2010-2014 Clinical Professor
  Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney NSW Australia
  2006-present

Here's your last chance to apply for two prestigious travel awards:

1. APSR Travel Award to the ATS International Conference in Dallas, TX, USA, 17–22 May 2019

   See apsresp.org/awards/2019/apsr-yi-to-ats.html for details.

2. 

   At the same conference is a joint one-day session with APSR and ISRD (International Society for Respiratory Diseases), to which all APSR members are cordially invited to attend.

   Travel awards are available for Young Investigator speakers at this session and details are at /awards/2019/apsr-yi-to-isrd.html.

For those requiring a visa for the US, please note that processing can take a long time, depending on nationality and location. Contact your nearest US Embassy for details.

Details of several other 2019 awards can be seen at apsresp.org/awards/index.html

As with the rest of Japan, the office in Tokyo was open as usual over the Christmas period, closed for New Year and will reopen on Monday 7 January.

The staff at the APSR Secretariat office wish you a very happy, healthy and peaceful 2019!

The December issue (Vol 10.12) features Tobacco/Smoking Cessation:

• A pragmatic trial of e-cigarettes, incentives, and drugs for smoking cessation.
• Smoking cessation, weight change, type 2 diabetes, and mortality.
• Cardiovascular and neuropsychiatric events after varenicline use for smoking cessation.
• The effects of smoking on treatment outcome in patients newly diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis.
• Perception and current use of e-cigarettes among youth in China.
• Income disparities in smoking cessation and the diffusion of smoke-free homes among U.S. smokers: Results from two longitudinal surveys.
• Support for a point-of-sale cigarette display ban among smokers: findings from the international tobacco control (ITC) Netherlands survey.
• Tobacco Dependence Predicts Higher Lung Cancer and Mortality Rates and Lower Rates of Smoking
• Acute effects of electronic and tobacco cigarettes on vascular and respiratory function in healthy volunteers: a cross-over study.
• Global economic cost of smoking-attributable diseases.
• Analysis of Article 6 (tax and price measures to reduce the demand for tobacco products) of the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

The following cases have been selected for inclusion in the January 2019 Respirology Case Reports, Volume 07 Issue 1, and the February 2019 Respirology Case Reports, Volume 07 Issue 2

Volume 07 Issue 1

Volume 07 Issue 2

Summary of activities in 2018 (to 31 October 2018)

Members & Branch Events

Activities

The Asian Pacific Congress on Bronchology and Interventional Pulmonology (APCB 2019) will take place at the Gold Coast Exhibition and Convention Centre, Australia, 28–30 March 2019, preceding the TSANZSRS Annual Scientific Meeting (30 March – 2 April).

It will attract a distinguished audience comprised of researchers and clinicians in the field of bronchology and interventional pulmonology. The theme is "Case Based Training – Practice and Theory" and it will have a novel design with a hands-on focus; workshops will provide the core part of the Congress.

APCB 2019 promises to offer an exceptional learning opportunity. Case-based learning will take centre stage and local and international faculty have developed a range of interesting and informative cases across 9 key topics. As part of your registration package you will get to choose 4 half-day courses, which will include theory as well as plenty of time to gain hands-on practice in key procedural points relevant to the particular topic.

REGISTER NOW

For more information, or to sign up to receive updates, please go to www.apcb2019.com

The 59th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Respiratory Society will be held on 12-14 April 2019 at the Tokyo International Forum.

The Meeting's president will be Prof. Koichiro Tatsumi (Department of Respirology, Chiba University)

Details: www.jrs.or.jp/english/?content_id=27

Respiratory experts in Vietnam are organising an educational symposium: "Cardiopulmonary diagnostics and pediatric pulmonary function testing", endorsed by the APSR as part of the APSR's ESAP programme. It will run on 11–12 January 2019 at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, 17 Hong Bang Street, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

After this workshop, participants should:

1. Understand indications and test performance of cardiopulmonary exercise testing.
2. Understand parameters of cardiopulmonary exercise testing.
3. Interpret results of cardiopulmonary exercise testing in adults and children.
4. Apply the exercise tests for management of COPD.
5. Understand indications for lung function testing in the pediatric population.
6. Apply the usefulness of spirometry, lung volumes, forced oscillatory technique and FeNO in pediatric population into clinical practice.
7. Apply results of pediatric pulmonary function testing for management of asthma.

Chair: Ngo Quy Chau
Co-Chair: Le Thi Tuyet Lan

Faculty:

• Professor Carl Mottram (USA)
• Professor Graham Hall (Australia)
• A/Professor Le Thi Tuyet Lan (Vietnam)
• A/Professor Pham Thi Minh Hong (Vietnam)
• Ms Hynes MHA RRT (USA)
• Dr Dang Thi Kim Huyen (Vietnam)
• Dr Vu Tran Thien Quan (Vietnam)

Primary host: Vietnam Respiratory Society
Co-host: Society of Asthma, Allergy and Clinical Immunology of Hochiminh City

On 1 December 2018, the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS) issued the following press release for World AIDS Day.

View the fact sheet.

have kindly sent their donations towards the Society's goals, as outlined at apsresp.org/members/donors.php.

The APSR is profoundly grateful for their generosity.

Congratulations to the following members who have recently become APSR Fellows.

• Dr Ni Wayan Candrawati FAPSR (Indonesia)
• Dr John Noel Chan FAPSR (Philippines)
• Jasminarti Dwi Kusumawardani Ida Ayu FAPSR (Indonesia)
• Kazuto Matsunaga FAPSR (Japan)

A warm welcome to the following members who have recently joined APSR assemblies. They will undoubtedly enjoy working with and networking with their assembly colleagues.

If you have news or announcements that may be of interest to other APSR members, please send details to Bulletin Coordinator Dr Arata Azuma (a-azuma@nms.ac.jp) or APSR Bulletin (bulletin@apsresp.org).