Read on to find out what pulmonologists do.

Imagine swimming underwater on a hot summer day. Everything is going well, until you try to come up for air. You desperately try to inhale the invisible gas that is literally all around you. Yet for some reason you can’t.

This terrifying experience happens to people with breathing disorders every day. The only difference is that no swimming is needed to trigger an episode.

Professional pulmonologists provide relief for patients having breathing difficulties. This is an essential health care job because without pulmonologists, many patients would be unable to catch their next breath of air.

What Pulmonologists Treat

As we mentioned above, there are a lot of people having trouble breathing right now. For example, roughly 25 million Americans have asthma, 8 million have bronchitis, and 3 million have emphysema. That’s about 36 million patients for just three disorders.

That’s just three disorders. Other problems treated by pulmonologists include:

• Bronchiectasis - damage caused by a widening of bronchial airways
• Cystic Fibrosis - hereditary disorder causing the body to produce an unnecessary amount of mucus in the lungs
• Interstitial Lung Disease - scarring brought on by exposure to toxic gases or autoimmune disease
• Lung Cancer - small tumors in the lung(s)
• Occupational Lung Diseases - caused by inhaling organic materials, such as dust or asbestosis. Examples include hypersensitivity pneumonitis and byssinosis
• Pneumonia - lung(s) become infected causing alveoli to fill with fluid
• Sleep Apnea - breathing sporadically starts and stops during sleep

There are other breathing disorders as well, creating huge demand for pulmonologists.

How Pulmonologists Help

Finding out which breathing disorder is afflicting a patient is priority number one. Diagnosis may be accomplished via x-rays, biopsies, breathing exercises, or other tests.

Once a diagnosis is confirmed, pulmonologists are responsible for determining the best course of action to speed up recovery. This can be something as mild as prescribing an antibiotic, vasodilator, or even a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure device, also known as a CPAP machine.

That said, there are numerous and more severe treatment recommendations a pulmonologist takes part in. A few are listed below.

• Balloon Bronchoscopy - inflating a balloon in a patient’s air passageway to dilate it
• Airway Stent - insert tiny tubes, known as stents, into a blocked or restricted air passageway
• Airway Ablation - remove muscles associated with causing breathing issues via laser, thermal, or surgery

Needless to say, pulmonologists diagnose and treat a wide spectrum of diseases. Medical students interested in taking up the position will need to have a keen eye for detail, a good memory, and the ability to find joy in every untroubled breath their patients take.