Tumen-Ulzii Gankhuyag

My name is Tumen-Ulzii, a newly graduated pulmonologist. I was pleased to attend the APSR 2021 Congress from Mongolia. It was my first time to participate in the meeting. I was very honoured and grateful to receive the “APSR / J Patrick Barron Medical Education Young Investigator Award” at the Congress. I would like to thank the people who evaluated my work because I was really happy to win the Award. Overall, this year’s Congress was very special. Due to the global pandemic, it had been organized by combination of virtual and on-site sessions. Therefore, the advantage was that anyone from anywhere in the world could connect and share their experience. There were many educational topics, talks on various new subjects, and researchers presenting their results.

My e-poster’s title was “The effect of asthma education programme of asthmatic patients”. Nowadays, the prevalence of asthma has been increasing, especially the mortality rate. So we need to improve asthma control. Asthma was diagnosed in 4.7% (3% of men and 6.8% of women), and current asthma “wheezing” in 15.7% (14.5% of men and 16.6% of women) of adults in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. (2010 by Munkhbayarlakh et al.) A total of 50 people with asthma, 30% (15) before training of the patients surveyed had “adequate knowledge”, but 70% (35) had “inadequate knowledge”. This is similar to the results of other studies, suggesting that it is important to focus on the patient's treatment as well as knowledge about the disease. Lack of knowledge by asthma patients, especially in terms of treatment, is a major reason for uncontrolled asthma. Health education training of asthma improves the knowledge of asthma, patient’s control and quality of life.

During the Congress, I focused to listen about severe asthma and treatment of progressive ILD. I am pleased to have had the opportunity to listen to all lectures on-demand after the conference. After attending the closing ceremony and watching the APSR 2022 introductory video, I want to visit the Republic of Korea. I really hope to attend the APSR Congress again in the future.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my consultor, mentor and teacher Dr Solongo Bandi, colleagues in our department and my family for supporting my research.

Tumen-Ulzii Gankhuyag