Campaign Update:
Check Out Our New Online Resources for Media and Healthcare Professionals!

Expanded Events Listing
Spring is here and the conference season is in full swing. To help you promote your COPD-related meetings and events, we’ve expanded our Events Listing page to include a specific listing of meetings for health care professionals. So spread the word about your upcoming COPD meeting - Register today! Want to learn more about COPD events taking place in your area? Click here. Events are listed by state and entries include a detailed overview and contact information.

Online Press Kit
The new Learn More Breathe Better online press kit is a one-stop shop where reporters can find everything they need to develop a story on COPD and the Learn More Breathe Better campaign. Share the link with your local TV, newspaper, and radio health reporters as well as your organization’s newsletter editors. In addition to campaign press releases, we’ve included matte articles and story ideas, bios of patient advocates, print and radio PSAs, and contact information for the NHLBI communications office. Check it out and write a story for your newsletter or website today!.

Partners in Motion…

Nurse practitioners and physicians assistants across the country will soon be receiving a kit that will help them manage their patients with COPD. The COPD Foundation, through a grant made possible by Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Pfizer Inc., will be sending COPD resource kits to more than 16,000 nurse practitioners and physicians assistants.

Each kit will include Learn More Breathe Better fact sheets for patients and at-risk individuals, a resource card for healthcare professionals, a Learn More Breathe Better poster, a copy of COPD Digest, and a subscription pad offering a free copy of COPD Digest.

For more information please call the COPD Foundation at 1-866-316-COPD (2673).

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Spotlight on…Chip Gatchell

Using New Media to Support COPD Patients and Their Caregivers

As an engraver and artisan, Chip Gatchell won commissions for major monuments all over the Northeast. Unfortunately, the combination of dust, sand, and dirt from glasswork and sandblasting, coupled with years of smoking, contributed to breathing problems, numerous bouts with pneumonia, and finally a diagnosis of COPD.

When Gatchell was first diagnosed, he turned to the Internet for information. What he found was an active and robust patient community, and much needed support and understanding. "I discovered there were people out there just like me -- scared, uninformed, withdrawing. I became close friends with some people I met in a chat room. Then I volunteered as a chat host for a COPD support website. The more I learned, the more I realized that we can help each other control this disease instead of letting it control us," Gatchell said.

Today, Gatchell is a co-founder and the chair of COPD-International, an online interactive support network for COPD patients and their caregivers. The site logs tens of thousands of visitors on a monthly basis, each seeking information and support via chat rooms, message boards, e-mail lists, community forums, weekly newsletters, blogs, and more. COPD International also has a quit smoking program and a searchable library with hundreds of informative articles about COPD.

“People are scared when they are first diagnosed. Our site helps patients learn they are not alone,” Gatchell added. “Through this education and support, they not only learn they can control the disease and live better, but in many cases they become awareness advocates themselves."

For more information visit www.copd-international.com.

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