Lungs on the road in alpine Austria
The 41st Annual Meeting of the Austrian Society of Pneumology (ASP) took place from 5-7 October, 2017 in Innsbruck, Austria, the capital of the Alps. Famous as a skiing and mountaineering destination, Tyrol’s first city had a hand in inspiring this year’s congress topic “Lungs on the road”, which looked at travel, sport, rehabilitation and lungs in extreme situations.
In keeping with this topic, the opening address was held by Peter Habeler. The Austrian extreme mountain climber became famous in 1978 following the first ascent of Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen, together with the acclaimed South Tyrolian mountaineer Reinhold Messner. In another lecture, delegates learned about climbing Kilimanjaro with lung transplant patients. Aiming higher yet, one session even addressed sleep research in space.
One more reason Tyrol was chosen as a congress destination was its proximity to the neighbouring regions – South Tyrol, Switzerland and Germany. Part of the congress was translated into English to encourage international participation. There was also a dedicated programme for students of medicine and general practitioners. The ASP congress reached nearly 850 delegates and is Austria’s major educational format for lung specialists.