Over 400 people attended the recent Healthy Friday session, “Take a Deep Breath” featuring pulmonology experts from Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

“Every year, 8,000 people in Israel die from smoking or damage caused by smokers. In addition, the life expectancy of smokers is 10 years less than that of non-smokers.” explains Professor Gabriel Izbicki, the Director of our Pulmonary Institute. Dr. Izbicki has launched numerous efforts to encourage people to stop smoking from opening support groups to help people stop smoking (including setting up booths in public places to attract people to join these groups) as well as launching a far reaching study about smoking.

Several members of our staff from the Pulmonary Institute presented an array of respiratory issues: Dr. Ariel Rokach, described difficulty breathing due to the aspiration of a foreign object and other causes of shortness of breath; Dr. Nissim Arish, discussed coughing which is a symptoms many patients complain about and is the reason for over 30 million visits to medical professionals in the United States each year; Dr. Chen Chen-Shauli, provided an overview of numerous methods that our Pulmonology Institute offers to help people stop smoking; Dr. Amir Jarjoui, explained respiratory diseases focusing on asthma and COPD; Dr. Hava Azulai, discussed new treatments for lung disease including a revolutionary treatment to reduce the volume of people’s lungs by transplanting coils in the lungs of severe COPD patients as well as numerous research efforts using medications and Professor Gabriel Izbicki shared the array of services and treatments that the institute offers.

Prof. Izbicki shared with the audience, “We hope that you will not need our help but if you do, we treat thousands of people who suffer from respiratory diseases each year. The diagnosis and treatment are performed based on international standards and we adhere to our own standards of excellence and provide our patients and their families with warm, tailored care.

One person who attended the session this past Friday shared, “A variety of issues were discussed and now, I feel that I better understand some of my own breathing issues. I also learned some different techniques that I hope will help me.”