New podcast episode a breath of fresh air
10 May 2023
A new episode of WA Health's podcast 'This podcast could save your life' has been released featuring Dr John Blakey, Respiratory Physician, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and Ms Brooke Kyle, Clinical Nurse Consultant, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.
Alongside host, Paula Voce, these experts provided an in-depth insight into all thing's asthma.
Dr Blakey is an expert in disease of the airways. He has an extensive record of quality improvement, education, and research publications in this area.
Throughout the podcast, Dr Blakey dives into some of the key issues surrounding asthma.
'One of the issues is that people tend to put up with a relatively high burden of symptoms... it's important to emphasise that these flare ups that people have, they do cause damage to the lung in the long term,' Dr Blakey said.
Despite these issues, Dr Blakely also discusses ways that people can further manage their asthma as well as the growing asthma research initiatives within WA.
'I think the asthma landscape from a research perspective is very rosy and we continue in the background to collaborate with our colleagues nationally on the asthma registries and internationally on the international severe asthma registry.'
Ms Kyle has been a respiratory nurse for 13 years working in both the hospital and community setting covering all aspects of respiratory medicine. She provides clinical consultation, management, support and education to patients with asthma.
Ms Kyle provides an insight into some of the ways that workplaces can support people with asthma.
'It's important to recognise that some workplaces can cause patients to really worsen occupational asthma. So they're environments that trigger their asthma and make it worse. Bakers with the flours and pharmacists with chemicals. So, making sure they're working with their employees to help mitigate and reduce those risk factors is an important step,' she said.
Asthma is a disease of the airways in the lungs and is a long-term condition. It can be triggered by a variety of things such as colds, smoke, exercise and food.
Asthma affects more than 237,000 Western Australians with 2,500 requiring hospital treatment each year. Asthma WA estimate that 80 per cent of hospital admissions can be avoided.
You can listen to Dr Blakey and Ms Kyle's deep dive into asthma on our website, or find the podcast on Spotify (external site) and Apple Podcasts (external site).