N. Postscript and Biographical Sketches of Authors

Frontline Treatment of COPD is intended to be a primer for primary care physicians. The authors believe that they have provided a timely and succinct message that can help primary care physicians immediately improve treatment for patients with COPD. Unfortunately, every detail of the management of COPD could not be included in a book of this size and scope. Also, new conceptual and technological advances, including new pharmacological agents and drug-delivery devices, are anticipated in the future.

Finally, let us offer an innovative philosophy--based entirely on clinical studies–about the basic nature of COPD. Whether or not this hypothesis explains the multiplicity of factors that conspire to create the pathophysiological state of COPD–a process which takes 30 to 40 years and culminates with premature morbidity and mortality–remains to be established.

It may be appropriate to consider COPD as a multi-system disease. Patients with any stage of COPD exhibit a common affective disorder that is characterized by anxiety, depression, and somatic preoccupation. Anxiety and depression can be reduced with tobacco use, which may be one of the main reasons why nicotine addiction in COPD patients is so strong. In addition, smokers weigh less than nonsmokers. They tend to consume foods higher in fat and cholesterol and lower in fiber and antioxidant vitamins. Deficiency in antioxidant vitamins may be an additional factor in the premature morbidity and mortality suffered by COPD patients. Accordingly, the treatment of COPD may take on a new conceptual framework when we consider that COPD may, in fact, be a systemic illness.

References

Petty TL (editorial). Pulmonary rehabilitation of early COPD: COPD as a systemic disease. Chest 1994;105:1636-1637. COPD should be considered a systemic disease and pulmonary rehabilitation should be provided for patients in all stages of disease.

Thomas L. Petty, M.D.

Thomas L. Petty, M.D. received his m.d. at the University of Colorado in 1958. He interned at Philadelphia General Hospital and received his residency training at the University of Michigan and the University of Colorado. His pulmonary training was at the University of Colorado. He is a pulmonologist and Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver and at Rush University in Chicago. He was previously head of the Division of Pulmonary Sciences at the University and Director of the Fellowship Training Program.

Dr. Petty was founding President of the Association of Pulmonary Program Directors, (appd), and has served as President of the American College of Chest Physicians. He is a former member of the Board of Governors of the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Petty has received the Distinguished Service Award of the American Thoracic Society (1995), elected to the Colorado Pulmonary Physicians’ "Hall of Fame" (1995) and received the annual award for excellence by the American Association for Respiratory and Cardiovascular Rehabilitation (1995). He was elected to Master Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians (1995). He also received the Master Award of the American College of Physicians in 1996. Dr. Petty has been named Chairman of the National Lung Health Education Program, (nlhep). Its goal is the early diagnosis of COPD and lung cancer.

Today, Dr. Petty also remains active in teaching, patient care, and research. He enjoys fishing, small game hunting, and playing with his three “kids” and eight grandchildren.

J. Roy Duke, Jr., M.D.

Dr. Duke was born in Ocala, Florida and attended Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana, obtaining his medical degree in 1960. After a two-year stint in the U.S. Air Force, he completed his postgraduate training in pulmonary medicine at Tulane in 1967.

Dr. Duke joined the Palm Beach Medical Group in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1967 and has practiced pulmonary medicine and internal medicine there to the present. He has served as Chief of Medicine and Chief of Staff of Good Samaritan Hospital in West Palm Beach and is currently the Director of Pulmonary Services.

He has an interest in Hyperbaric Medicine, which is an extension of his hobbies of scuba diving and underwater photography. He is also an avid fly fisherman and fly tier. Dr. Duke is married to Bobbye Craig Duke and has two children, Denise and Christopher.

James T. Good, Jr., M.D.

Dr. Good received his m.d. degree from the University of Kansas and then completed a medical internship, residency and chief medical residency also at the University of Kansas. He then completed a three-year pulmonary and critical care fellowship at the University of Colorado. The next four years he remained on the faculty at the University of Colorado as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and was Medical Director of both the Respiratory Therapy Department and the Critical Care Unit at Denver General Hospital.

His scientific interests include management of critical patients with acute respiratory failure, pleural diseases and asthma. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Chest Physicians, and served as the Governor for the states of Colorado and Wyoming for the accp from 1988 to 1994.

He currently is in the private practice of pulmonary and critical care medicine in south Denver and is Medical Director of the Swedish/Columbia Critical Care Unit. He remains actively involved in clinical research, teaching medical students and residents, and in continuing medical education programs.

Leonard D. Hudson, M.D.

Dr. Hudson received his b.s. from Washington State University in Pullman, Washington and his m.d. from the University of Washington, Seattle. He did his internship at Bellevue Hospital Center (New York) and his residency at New York Hospital, Cornell Medical Center (New York) and at the University of Washington (Seattle). From 1971 to 1973, Dr. Hudson was an attending physician at Colorado General Hospital in Denver. In 1973, he moved to the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he rose to Associate Physician-in- Chief in the Department of Medicine.

In 1985, Dr. Hudson became Head of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Washington. Since 1982, he has been a Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Dr. Hudson's honors include Outstanding Resident, Harborview Medical Center; American Thoracic Society Fellowship in Pulmonary Diseases; Chair, Pulmonary Disease Subspecialty Board, American Board of Internal Medicine; and Chair, Critical Care Medicine Test Committee, American Board of Internal Medicine. He was President of the American Thoracic Society from 1995 to 1996.

Dean D. Mergenthaler, M.D.

Dr. Mergenthaler has an undergraduate degree in chemistry and biology from Cornell University, a Master's degree in human anatomy from the University of Miami School of Medicine, a medical doctor degree from Jefferson Medical College, with internship at Robert Packer Guthrie Hospital and Clinic and internal medicine residency and pulmonary fellowship at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Dr. Mergenthaler has been in private practice of pulmonary and internal medicine for the past 30 years in Palm Beach County, Florida. He has been active in the development and medical directorship of several hospital Respiratory Therapy Departments, as well as in the development of a local community medical center.

His hobbies include fishing, traveling, reading, and gardening. He and his wife, Mary Beth, have two grown children.

John F. Murray, M.D.

After receiving his b.a. (1949) and m.d. (1953) degrees, both from Stanford University, Dr. Murray had two years of medical residency training at San Francisco General Hospital and two more years at Kings County Hospital (New York). Afterward, he had a year of research training at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London.

He started his faculty career at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1957, rising to the rank of Associate Professor of Medicine and Physiology. In 1966 he moved to the University of California, San Francisco, where he became Professor of Medicine in 1969. He was also a member of the Senior Staff of the Cardiovascular Research Institute and Chief of the Chest Service at San Francisco General Hospital (1966 to 1989).

He became Professor Emeritus in 1994, and now works mainly in Paris, France as President (1992 to 1996) of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. Dr. Murray received the College Medal of the American College of Chest Physicians (1985), the Trudeau Medal of the American Thoracic Society (1989), and the President's Award of the European Respiratory Society (1996).

Thomas A. Neff, M.D. (1937–1994)

Dr. Neff was a Professor of Medicine and served as Chief of Denver General Hospital’s Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Service as well as Denver General Hospital’s Medical Director of Respiratory Care for 25 years. He graduated from Northwestern University School of Medicine in 1963 and served a year at the Army’s 85th Evacuation Hospital in Vietnam. He joined the Colorado Pulmonary fellowship training program in 1967. After finishing his training, he joined the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and eventually became head of Pulmonary Services at Denver General Hospital. He worked diligently to build an excellent educational environment for many of today’s national leaders in pulmonary diseases. He participated in many clinical trials and took a leadership role in the Oxygen Consensus Conferences organized by the Denver group. Dr. Neff was dedicated to excellence in patient care. Truly one of the leaders in pulmonary medicine, Dr. Neff died in December, 1994 of cancer.

Donald R. Rollins, M.D.

Dr. Rollins is now consultant in Internal Medicine and Pulmonary Disease at Greenbrier Clinic in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Previously he was a pulmonologist engaged in clinical practice in Loveland, Colorado, where he was Medical Director of the Cardiopulmonary Department at McKee Medical Center. He is a Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians and the American College of Physicians. He was an Associate Clinical Professor in the Pulmonary Division at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver and continues to be actively involved with clinical research. Dr. Rollins received his ba at St. Olaf College and his md from the University of North Carolina. He did his internship, residency and pulmonary fellowship at the University of Texas.

He enjoys fishing with friends and playing string bass and guitar with his daughter Elizabeth, and wife Susan, both accomplished musicians.