Smoking Cessation – A Patient’s Perspective

Smoking is the primary risk factor for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and the benefits of smoking cessation can reduce the risk of many adverse health effects for patients with respiratory diseases. To address this important topic Chiesi has invited Professor Keir Lewis to answer questions and to share a powerful personal success story that quitting smoking caused for a patient.

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• Professor Keir Lewis

  Professor and Respiratory Lead

  Read biography
  Professor Keir Lewis

  Professor and Respiratory Lead Swansea University and Hywel Dda University Health Board

  Role and Location
  Keir Lewis is a Professor at Swansea University and Respiratory Lead for a group of hospitals (Hywel Dda University Health Board) in Wales, UK.

  Education
  Keir qualified as a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) from Guys and St Thomas in 1995. He later graduated as a Doctor in Medicine from Cardiff University, specialising in sleep medicine. In 1993 he received a first-class honours in Psychology (BSc) from the University of London.

  Research Interests
  As a pulmonologist Keir set-up and leads his hospital-network of smoking cessation, sleep apnoea and respiratory failure services.
  He is the UKCRN Speciality Lead for Respiratory research for Wales. He leads several multicentre trials including the largest prospective cohort study (LungCast) looking at stopping smoking after a diagnosis of lung cancer.

  Memberships
  Keir was a regional Director of NHS R&D (2009-19) expanding this service by over 1000% in both income and staff, winning several awards. He has co-authored UK and European Guidelines on Smoking Cessation and was Chair of the BTS Tobacco Speciality Advisory Group. He has advised Welsh and UK Governments on smoking and tobacco control.

  He is lead or co-applicant on grants worth over 25M euros and has given invited lectures worldwide on Smoking Cessation, writing 2 textbooks. In 2019, he helped create and is the first Medical Director of a government project, Respiratory Innovation Wales (riwales.com).