We are the combination of four hospitals: the General Hospital, the Children’s Hospital, the Women’s Hospital and the Traumatology, Rehabilitation and Burns Hospital. We are part of the Vall d’Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus: a world-leading health park where healthcare plays a crucial role.
Patients are the centre and the core of our system. We are professionals committed to quality care and our organizational structure breaks down the traditional boundaries between departments and professional groups, with an exclusive model of knowledge areas.
Would you like to know what your stay at Vall d'Hebron will be like? Here you will find all the information.
The commitment of Vall d'Hebron University Hospital to innovation allows us to be at the forefront of medicine, providing first class care adapted to the changing needs of each patient.
The lung transplant consists of replacing one or two sick lungs with healthy lungs. In general, transplants are carried out when there is a disease that involves severe and progressive chronic respiratory failure. Lung transplants started in 1981 in California. In Catalonia, this type of intervention is carried out exclusively at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital, for both children and adults.
Currently, 4,000 lung transplants are carried out every year around the world, including children and adults, especially in Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia. In the case of Catalonia, nine lung transplants are carried out per million inhabitants, a figure that puts us at the top of the tables. Our experience ranges from month-old babies to 70-year-olds.
Normally, it is a pneumologist with a patient with chronic respiratory insufficiency who contacts the Lung Transplant Unit for both adults and children at the Vall d'Hebron Hospital. From that first point of contact, the patient will be assessed by a multidisciplinary team in order to offer the best option, which might involve a transplant or simply medical treatment. It is important to remember that people who undergo lung transplants need to be strong enough to both wait for the operation and recover from it. This is a fundamental, complex requirement that must be met if the transplant is to provide benefits for the patient.
The survival rates for lung transplants are very positive. More than half of all patients are still alive after five years of the operation, and one in three patients after ten years. However, the goal of specialists is to continue researching to improve these results and prevent chronic rejection, and all the factors that lead to this complication.
Patients undergoing lung transplants must take an immunosuppressive therapy and prophylactics for an extended period of time. Most of these treatments are oral and in some cases may be inhaled.
In order to prevent complications, the medical advice given by your doctor should be followed precisely, avoid stress or over-exertion and make sure you follow the medication plan exactly. Aside from that, you can expect to lead a normal life.
At the Pneumology Department, we work to provide patients with respiratory diseases with the best care possible. To achieve this goal, we also carry out research and teaching activity that undoubtedly makes a large contribution to improving care quality.
Our vision and values as a Department place patients at the heart of everything we do. As healthcare professionals we are dedicated first and foremost to each of our patients. Our main motivation is continuous learning in order to improve and advance our knowledge, thus achieving excellence in our day-to-day work. The Department is made up of 18 in-house doctors, 12 resident doctors (three per year) and 9 associate doctors.
The Pneumology Teaching Unit is led by the Vall d’Hebron Pneumology Department, with participation from Internal medicine, Cardiology, Radiology, Thoracic Surgery, Intensive Care Medicine, and the Accident and Emergency Department.
Pulmonology training itinerary
Pneumology deals with the physiology and pathology of the respiratory system. Its principle purpose is the study of the aetiology, epidemiology, physiopathology, diagnosis, treatment, prevention and rehabilitation of respiratory diseases. The therapeutic and diagnostic principles of respiratory medicine are similar to those of internal medicine, although there are differences that clearly distinguish each of the specialisations. The most important difference is their reliance on and mastery of specific techniques. Diagnostic techniques include lung function analysis, respiratory or thoracic endoscopy, polysomnography and cardiorespiratory polygraphy; while mechanical rehabilitation and ventilation are used therapeutically.
Pneumology, General Hospital
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