Professor Joanna Szram
ALAMA Annual Conference 2025
Professor Joanna Szram will be speaking at the ALAMA Annual Conference this year, on a topic titled "Occupational Lung Disease in the 21st Century".
Taken from the conference website: The ALAMA Annual Conferences are unmissable events for Occupational Health physicians to polish their skills, network with others and earn valuable CPD. The Conferences are open to ALAMA members.
Read the full programme on the conference website.
Click here to register (external link)Artificial stone silicosis: A UK case series
Silicosis due to artificial stone (AS) has emerged over the last decade as an increasing global issue. We report the first eight UK cases. All were men; median age was 34 years (range 27–56) and median stone dust exposure was 12.5 years (range 4–40) but in 4 cases was 4–8 years. One is deceased; two were referred for lung transplant assessment. All cases were dry cutting and polishing AS worktops with inadequate safety measures. Clinical features of silicosis can closely mimic sarcoidosis.
Assessment and outcomes of firefighter applicants with possible asthma
Association of Aviation Medical Examiners - 45th Annual Conference
Professor Joanna Szram will be speaking at the 45th Annual Conference for the Association of Aviation Medical Examiners on 16th May 2025 in Jersey. Their talk is titled "Lungs at Work - Occupational Lung Disease".
Click here to register (external link)Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and breathlessness in older workers predict economic inactivity. A prospective cohort study
Rationale
There is an aspiration to retain increasing numbers of older workers in employment, and strategies to achieve this need to make provision for the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases with age. There is a consistent body of cross-sectional evidence that suggests that patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are more likely to have adverse employment outcomes.
Objectives
We report the findings of the first longitudinal study of this issue.
Methods
Creation of novel training programmes mapped to the Joint Royal Colleges of Physicians Training Board Internal Medicine stage 1 curriculum
Development of a north-west London paracentesis simulation course for core medical trainees
We designed, implemented and evaluated a near-peer simulation training programme teaching diagnostic and therapeutic abdominal paracentesis to core medical trainees (CMTs). We taught diagnostic and therapeutic abdominal paracentesis to 77 north-west London CMTs over 8 training days over 4 years, 2015 to 2019. The programme was optimised by use of plan, do, study, act (PDSA) cycles and the content was evaluated by anonymous pre- and post-course questionnaires.
EOPH 2025 conference
Fri, 14 Feb 2025
Professor Jo Szram spoke at the EOPH conference this year titled ‘Putting Health back into Health Surveillance’ on 14th February 2025 in Birmingham. They outlined the common contemporary issues in occupational lung disease, focusing on the conditions and presentations that a modern day occupational health practitioner is likely to encounter.
Event feedback coming soon.
Read more about education and training we provide.
Follow-up survey of patients with occupational asthma
Learning to speak up and to learn differently
We are delighted to introduce an issue of FHJ in which we have focused our minds, and hopefully those of our readers, on the ever-present activity of all clinicians (and humans) – learning. This is such a wide topic, so we have considered a number of different dimensions with the confidence that these will stimulate interest, debate and discussion. Firstly, we have considered the important issue of learning to speak up in our workplaces.
