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Medical specialties

Respiratory Medicine Diploma

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An evidence-led diploma in adult respiratory medicine: how to confirm the diagnosis with the right tests, treat asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), infection, fibrotic and pleural disease to current UK and European guidance, and judge when new treatments and trials should change your practice.

Twenty-five weekly sessions across five modules take you from lung function and airways disease, through acute respiratory medicine, interstitial lung disease (ILD), pleural and pulmonary vascular disease, lung cancer, tuberculosis and sleep, to rehabilitation, palliative care and running a service, taught live by practising specialists you can question.

Course director
To be announced
Format
25 live weekly sessions on Zoom, in 5 modules
Dates
Confirmed when enrolment opens

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Normal chest X-ray taken from the front, showing both lungs, the ribs and the heart in the centre.
Image: chest radiograph by Stillwaterising via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Who it is for

Senior trainees, fellows and early-career consultants in respiratory medicine, and physicians and GPs who manage lung disease, worldwide.

The programme

25 one-hour sessions in 5 modules, each with its learning objectives. This is the draft programme: the course director reviews and refines it before enrolment opens, so session titles may change.

Module 1 · Sessions 1 to 5Lung function and airways disease

  1. 1. Lung function testing and the breathless patient

    • Interpret spirometry, lung volumes and gas transfer using z-scores
    • Explain why race-neutral reference equations change some diagnoses
    • Distinguish obstructive, restrictive and mixed patterns and their causes
    • Decide when cardiopulmonary exercise testing will answer the clinical question

  2. 2. Diagnosing asthma

    • Apply an objective testing sequence to confirm or refute asthma
    • Interpret fractional exhaled nitric oxide and blood eosinophils in context
    • Recognise occupational asthma and arrange the right tests
    • Explain where UK and global diagnostic recommendations differ

  3. 3. Managing chronic asthma

    • Start and step treatment using an anti-inflammatory reliever approach
    • Prescribe maintenance and reliever therapy with a clear written action plan
    • Identify poor adherence and inhaler technique before escalating treatment
    • Reduce reliance on short-acting reliever-only treatment in line with current guidance

  4. 4. Severe asthma and biologics

    • Distinguish difficult-to-treat from severe asthma using a systematic assessment
    • Phenotype a patient using eosinophils, exhaled nitric oxide and IgE
    • Choose a biologic and define response criteria
    • Plan oral corticosteroid reduction once a biologic works

  5. 5. COPD: diagnosis and stable management

    • Confirm a COPD diagnosis and assess symptom burden and exacerbation risk
    • Escalate inhaled therapy using the eosinophil count and exacerbation history
    • Identify patients who may benefit from biologic therapy
    • Deliver evidence-based tobacco dependence treatment and refer to pulmonary rehabilitation
Module 2 · Sessions 6 to 10Acute respiratory medicine

  1. 6. Exacerbations of COPD and non-invasive ventilation

    • Manage an exacerbation of COPD with controlled oxygen, bronchodilators, steroids and antibiotics
    • Identify acute hypercapnic respiratory failure that needs non-invasive ventilation
    • Set up and monitor non-invasive ventilation and recognise when it is failing
    • Agree a ceiling of treatment with the patient and family

  2. 7. Oxygen therapy and acute respiratory failure

    • Prescribe oxygen to a target saturation range for the patient's condition
    • Decide when high-flow nasal oxygen is appropriate
    • Recognise when respiratory failure needs critical care
    • Account for the limits of pulse oximetry in people with darker skin

  3. 8. Community-acquired pneumonia

    • Assess pneumonia severity and choose the place of care
    • Prescribe antibiotics of the right spectrum and duration
    • Decide which patients with severe pneumonia should receive corticosteroids
    • Manage aspiration pneumonia without unnecessary broad-spectrum antibiotics

  4. 9. Pulmonary embolism

    • Apply a diagnostic pathway for suspected pulmonary embolism
    • Stratify risk and select patients for outpatient treatment
    • Decide when thrombolysis or catheter-directed treatment is needed
    • Plan follow-up to detect chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension

  5. 10. Pneumothorax and pleural infection

    • Choose conservative, ambulatory or drainage management for spontaneous pneumothorax
    • Diagnose pleural infection using imaging and pleural fluid analysis
    • Decide when to use intrapleural therapy or refer for surgery
    • Apply safety standards for pleural procedures, including ultrasound guidance
Module 3 · Sessions 11 to 15Interstitial, pleural and pulmonary vascular disease

  1. 11. Interstitial lung disease: diagnosis and the multidisciplinary meeting

    • Recognise the main high-resolution computed tomography patterns of fibrotic lung disease
    • Prepare a case for an interstitial lung disease multidisciplinary meeting
    • Diagnose idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis using current criteria
    • Decide when lung biopsy, including cryobiopsy, is justified

  2. 12. Progressive pulmonary fibrosis and antifibrotic treatment

    • Identify progressive pulmonary fibrosis using the current definition
    • Start and monitor antifibrotic therapy and manage its side effects
    • Coordinate the care of connective tissue disease-associated lung disease with rheumatology
    • Introduce palliative and supportive care early in progressive fibrosis

  3. 13. Sarcoidosis and chronic pulmonary aspergillosis

    • Establish a diagnosis of sarcoidosis and exclude its mimics
    • Decide which patients need treatment and choose first-line therapy
    • Screen for cardiac and other extrapulmonary involvement
    • Recognise chronic pulmonary aspergillosis and outline its treatment

  4. 14. Pulmonary hypertension

    • Apply the current haemodynamic definition of pulmonary hypertension
    • Interpret echocardiographic probability and decide whom to refer
    • Classify pulmonary hypertension and recognise disease caused by lung disease or hypoxia
    • Describe specialist treatments for pulmonary arterial hypertension and their evidence

  5. 15. Pleural effusion and mesothelioma

    • Investigate a unilateral pleural effusion systematically
    • Distinguish transudates from exudates and identify common causes
    • Choose between talc pleurodesis and an indwelling pleural catheter for malignant effusion
    • Recognise asbestos-related pleural disease and mesothelioma
Module 4 · Sessions 16 to 20Lung cancer, infection and sleep

  1. 16. Pulmonary nodules, screening and suspected lung cancer

    • Refer suspected lung cancer through the right urgent pathway
    • Manage pulmonary nodules using British Thoracic Society guidance and volume doubling time
    • Explain the eligibility and follow-up of UK targeted lung screening
    • Manage incidental findings from screening scans proportionately

  2. 17. Lung cancer diagnosis, staging and treatment decisions

    • Plan a diagnostic pathway that obtains tissue and stage in one step where possible
    • Stage lung cancer using the ninth edition of TNM
    • Assess fitness for surgery or radical radiotherapy
    • Explain targeted and immunotherapy options and their respiratory side effects

  3. 18. Tuberculosis

    • Diagnose active pulmonary tuberculosis and start standard treatment
    • Identify who needs testing and treatment for latent infection
    • Recognise drug-resistant tuberculosis and use shorter regimens with expert advice
    • Coordinate public health notification and contact tracing

  4. 19. Bronchiectasis and nontuberculous mycobacteria

    • Investigate bronchiectasis for a treatable cause
    • Plan airway clearance and long-term antibiotic or macrolide therapy
    • Describe the evidence for new anti-inflammatory treatment in bronchiectasis
    • Decide when nontuberculous mycobacterial disease needs treatment

  5. 20. Sleep-disordered breathing and hypoventilation

    • Assess suspected obstructive sleep apnoea and choose the right sleep study
    • Start continuous positive airway pressure and manage poor adherence
    • Advise on driving regulations and occupational risk
    • Recognise obesity hypoventilation and arrange non-invasive ventilation
Module 5 · Sessions 21 to 25Special situations and the service

  1. 21. Chronic cough

    • Assess chronic cough systematically, including red flags
    • Treat asthma, reflux and upper airway causes before labelling cough refractory
    • Use neuromodulators and speech and language therapy for refractory cough
    • Explain cough hypersensitivity to patients

  2. 22. Fitness to fly, occupational and environmental lung disease

    • Assess fitness to fly and the need for in-flight oxygen
    • Take an occupational history that identifies causal exposures
    • Recognise silicosis and other pneumoconioses
    • Advise patients on environmental exposures that worsen lung disease

  3. 23. Home oxygen, pulmonary rehabilitation and palliative care

    • Assess patients for long-term and ambulatory oxygen
    • Refer to pulmonary rehabilitation and support completion
    • Manage chronic breathlessness with non-drug and drug approaches
    • Lead advance care planning conversations in advanced lung disease

  4. 24. Lung transplantation and rare lung disease

    • Identify patients who should be referred for lung transplant assessment
    • Describe how cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) modulators have changed adult cystic fibrosis care
    • Test for alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency in the right patients
    • Recognise when to suspect primary ciliary dyskinesia and other rare lung diseases

  5. 25. Complex case panel and running a respiratory service

    • Apply the course to complex cases in a panel discussion
    • Design an admission-avoidance pathway for exacerbations of chronic lung disease
    • Run a respiratory multidisciplinary meeting that produces clear decisions
    • Build a personal plan for continuing development in respiratory medicine

What the diploma includes

  • 25 live sessions on Zoom, one evening a week, with recordings for the weeks you miss.
  • Practising specialists teaching live, so you can put your questions to them.
  • Weekly MCQs and a final written assessment.
  • A digital certificate carrying your final classification.

Lead or teach the Respiratory Medicine Diploma

We are looking for a course director and faculty from the specialty. Sessions are one hour in the UK evening, live on Zoom, and paid.

Apply to teach