PULMONARY vascular disease, including hypertension, pulmonary embolism and sleep apnoea are among the topics to be explored at the 12th Annual Symposium of the Association of Consultant Physicians of Jamaica (ACPJ) on Sunday at the Faculty of Medical Sciences Research & Teaching Complex, University of the West Indies (UWI).

The symposium, titled ‘Updates in the Spectrum of Pulmonary Vascular Diseases’, will be opened by Health Minister Dr Fenton Ferguson, and will feature presentations from a distinguished cadre of local consultant pulmonologists. They will be joined by Professor Harrison Faber, director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Centre at the Boston Medical Centre, who will deliver the Wilbert Jeffrey Smith Wilson Memorial Lecture.

Professor E Nigel Harris, vice-chancellor of UWI, will deliver the Distinguished DM Graduate Lecture titled ‘Rheumatology and the Lung’ and in celebration of the 40 years of the University’s DM (internal medicine) programme.

President of the ACPJ, Dr Althea Aquart Stewart noted that the symposium is the final event of a weekend of activities designed to update physicians on advances in medicine, particularly as it relates to pulmonary diseases.”

Today, the association will host Grand Rounds followed by the Rolph Richards Memorial Lecture at the Main Medical Theatre, University Hospital of the West Indies, Mona. The lecture will be delivered by Professor Farber on the theme ‘Challenges and Fundamentals in Diagnosis and Management of Pulmonary Hypertension’. Tomorrow the association will honour physicians Professor Michael Lee, gastroenterologist, and Pulmonologist Dr Juliet Wynter-Daley, at the President’s Dinner which will be held at the Jamaica Pegasus.

The dinner will have Professor Frederick Hickling as its guest speaker and will also honour DM graduates of the past 10 years (2005-2014).