Meet the 2024 Winner: Carolyn Rochester, MD 

Dr. Rochester received her undergraduate degree from Smith College (1979), and her M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (1983). She completed her internship and residency in internal medicine (1984-1986) and two years of post-graduate pulmonary fellowship at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City (1986-1988). She furthered her fellowship training in the Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep at Yale University School of Medicine (1998-1991), and joined the faculty of the Yale University School of Medicine in 1991. She is currently Professor of Medicine, and Director of Yale COPD Program at Yale University School of Medicine, and Director of the Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program at VA Connecticut Healthcare System. She is the Chair of the Yale-New Haven Health System COPD Clinical Consensus Group in the YNHHS Care Signature Team, and together with the multidisciplinary YNHHS COPD Consensus working group members and the YNHHS Care Signature team, developed the inpatient COPD care pathway that was newly implemented in May 2021. She and the COPD Consensus working group collaborate with the YNHHS Quality and Safety team on processes to improve care of people with COPD and efforts to reduce hospital readmissions due to COPD. In 2020, the Yale COPD Program was recognized as an official Clinical Resource Center for the Alpha-1-Foundation, to provide specialty care for individuals with alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency. 

Dr. Rochester also directs the Yale Medical Students' Respiratory Pathophysiology curriculum in the Homeostasis Master Course and is involved in multiple other aspects of medical education at Yale. She was nominated for the 2020-2021 academic year Bohmfalk Teaching award, and received the 2021 Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine Postgraduate Fellows' teaching award. In addition to her extensive clinical and teaching responsibilities, Dr. Rochester participates in collaborative clinical research in the fields of Pulmonary Rehabilitation (PR) and COPD. 

Dr. Rochester is a longstanding and active member of the American Thoracic Society (ATS) and the European Respiratory Society (ERS). She served previously on the Task Force on the Status of Women in ATS, Postgraduate Education Committee, CP Assembly Program Committee, Publications Policy Committee, as Co-chair of the ATS Section on PR, PR Assembly Nominating and Program Committees, and the ICC. She has served in multiple leadership roles in the ATS over the years, including as Chair of the Assembly of Pulmonary Rehabilitation and invited member of the ATS Board of Directors (2015-2017), and remains a member of the Executive Committee of the ATS Pulmonary Rehabilitation Assembly.

She has served on the task forces and writing committees of numerous Official Society Statements and Guidelines on pulmonary rehabilitation (ATS, ERS, American College of Chest Physicians and American College of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation). In 2015, she was the ATS Co-Chair of the Task Force that developed the ATS/ERS Official Policy Statement: Enhancing Implementation, Use and Delivery of Pulmonary Rehabilitation (American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 2015; 192(11)1373-86). Most recently, she co-chaired the Committee to develop the new ATS Clinical Practice Guidelines for Pulmonary Rehabilitation (Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2023). She is actively involved in national and international advocacy to expand access to pulmonary rehabilitation for those likely to benefit from it. She previously served on the Planning and Evaluation Committee of the ATS, and currently serves on and Quality Improvement and Implementation Committee. She is deeply committed to the scientific, educational, mentoring and health policy and global health missions of the ATS.

Description:

This award is to recognise a clinician and/or researcher who is considered to have made a lifetime contribution to the advancement of Pulmonary Rehabilitation. The award could be posthumous or post-retirement.

Criteria:

• Recognized for making an outstanding life-time contribution to the science or practice of pulmonary rehabilitation.
• Recognized by his/her peers as an outstanding pulmonary rehabilitation clinician, and/or researcher, and/or teacher, and/or mentor, and/or advocate.
• May have previously received the PR Assembly Recognition Award (or similar previous PR Assembly Award).
• This award is open to all health disciplines.
• Nominations for this award should be by a letter from a Pulmonary Rehabilitation Assembly member describing why the award is appropriate. The cover letter should be limited 2 pages and up to 1000 words.
• Nominee's curriculum vitae should be included, if available.

Applications will be scored on the basis of the details provided in the submitted nomination.

Awards will only be given where suitable candidates are nominated.

View Previous Award Recipients