RodrigoVazquez GuillametMD

Summary

• The focus of my clinical practice and research gravitates around chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung transplantation. COPD is the leading chronic respiratory cause of death worldwide as well as the second most common indication for lung transplantation in the United States. The barriers to lung transplantation are many and include socioeconomic, medical and surgical barriers. Complementary clinical and research COPD centers can help overcome some of these barriers. During recent years I developed a multidisciplinary COPD clinic that provides detailed phenotyping of patients. As an example of complementary clinical work and research, the initial organization of the clinic benefited from the development of electronic medical record based “phenotypes” leading to personalized clinical pathways.
  
  As transplant physicians we still can’t accurately prognosticate which COPD patients will obtain a survival benefit from lung transplantation. Understanding the natural history of the disease is essential to answering this question. My research has developed and locally validated mortality prediction rules that take into consideration competing events. This way we can help selecting the appropriate timing for transplantation.
  
  My goal for the near future is to help advance and meld emerging knowledge in COPD and lung transplantation.