Following her appointment as President of FIRS, Professor Joanna Chorostowska-Wynimko shares her vision for strengthening global collaboration in respiratory health. In this interview, she discusses the organisation’s priorities, the importance of a unified global voice, and how international partnerships can help drive prevention, innovation and improved lung health worldwide.
Congratulations on becoming President of FIRS. What are your key priorities for the organisation during your presidency?
The value of FIRS is global collaboration – connecting like-minded organisations from around the world, strengthening messages, advocating for respiratory health and working together across borders and towards common goals. I would say that my priority as President of FIRS is to ensure that FIRS focuses on how, through collaboration, we can achieve more for respiratory health worldwide. This is especially important in the current climate.
Respiratory diseases continue to place a significant burden on health systems worldwide. Where do you believe FIRS can have the greatest impact in improving global lung health?
I believe that a unified voice, as wide reaching as possible, has power, whether that is to advocate for regulations around air pollution, tobacco or screening programmes etc. I believe that FIRS is an organisation that can bring respiratory organisations from around the world together and facilitate that unified voice – one strong global voice for respiratory health, in partnership with other global organisations, such as the World Health Organisation.
Prevention is increasingly recognised as essential to reducing the burden of lung disease. How can the global respiratory community work together to make prevention a priority?
We know that lung health is shaped before birth and throughout life, and at each phase there are opportunities to protect respiratory health or prevent disease. The global respiratory community has opportunities (and a responsibility) to work together, across disciplines and borders, to seize those opportunities.
Some examples are working together to promote the implementation of the UN and WHO resolutions and national respiratory strategies; combining public-health action on tobacco, air pollution and climate change; or collaborating on innovation in research, care and technology. Working together to advance precision medicine, genomics, artificial intelligence, lung cancer screening, remote monitoring and accessible medical devices, will help us identify risk earlier, prevent disease progression and deliver better preventative care to the World.
About Professor Joanna Chorostowska-Wynimko
Professor Joanna Chorostowska-Wynimko is the President of the European Respiratory Society (ERS). She is a professor of medicine, consultant in respiratory medicine, and Head of the Department of Genetics and Clinical Immunology at the National Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases in Warsaw, Poland. Her clinical and scientific interests include lung cancer diagnostics, including low-dose CT screening and molecular biomarkers, as well as COPD and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD).