Professor of Paediatrics, Charles University Prague, Head, Division of Paediatric Pulmonology, Paediatric Department, 2nd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University and University Hospital Motol, Prague, CZECH REPUBLIC
Professor Petr Pohunek (1956) graduated from the Faculty of Paediatric Medicine in Prague in 1981. After a short period of time of training in the regional hospital in Benešov he joined the team of Prof. Václav Špičák in the Paediatric Department in the Faculty Hospital Bulovka in Prague.
He finished his training in Paediatrics with Board certification in 1984 and continued to work in the field of paediatric respiratory medicine, setting up an advance lung function laboratory and in 1989 also starting the first Czech paediatric flexible bronchoscopy service. In 1994 he was invited to join the paediatric respiratory team in the University Hospital Motol in Prague and became the Assistant Professor in the 2nd Faculty of Medicine. In 2003 he was promoted to Associated Professor and in 2008 obtained full professorship at the Charles University in Prague. His main clinical and research interest has been paediatric asthma with accent on the early diagnosis and early inflammatory processes in the bronchi of young children with asthma, chronic respiratory diseases in children, especially the interstitial processes, and rare respiratory diseases, mainly primary ciliary dyskinesia. He has been the chair of the Czech Society of Paediatric Pulmonology since its founding in 2010, head of the Accreditation Committee of the Czech Ministry of Health for postgraduate training in Paediatric Pulmonology and, since 2008, the director of the Czech Initiative for Asthma, a non-profit educational organisation. He is a member of the European Respiratory Society since 1991 and participated in several Task Forces of the ERS. He is teaching regularly in the ERS Paediatric bronchoscopy course since 2001. He is a fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians (FCCP) since 1993. Petr Pohunek published more that 200 scientific papers in national and international periodicals, 6 monographs and 25 chapters in monographs. His work was cited 2663 times with h-index of 21. He is married and has one son and one daughter.