According to Dr. Richard Rosiello, being a pulmonary specialist fits his personality very well. “I guess I’m a little eclectic and so is my specialty, pulmonary and critical care medicine. There’s a lot of different aspects to pulmonary medicine, from managing patients in the clinic, to physiology testing, to procedures such as bronchoscopy, percutaneous tracheostomy to chest tube placement – I find it fascinating.”

One of the diseases that Dr. Rosiello deals with the most in his practice is Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, or COPD. “COPD is caused 95% of the time by smoking. Even for smokers that have quit, COPD can be a problem,” Dr. Rosiello explains. “Often times I see patients for the first time who have lost more than 50% of their lung function. Most people don’t even realize they have the disease until they become short of breath climbing stairs or otherwise exerting themselves. Fortunately, for the past 10 years we have been conducting a successful COPD program here at Reliant Medical Group and it’s helped many people enjoy a better quality of life as they deal with this disease.”

Dr. Rosiello also has developed the Fallon Asthma Clinic. In this clinic, both a pulmonary physician and an allergist see newly diagnosed or difficult to treat asthma patients. They receive pulmonary function testing and allergy skin testing and also undergo asthma teaching by an asthma nurse. Follow up appointments are also arranged as needed. All of this occurs during a single 2-hour visit to the pulmonary department. This is a major improvement in efficiency and coordination of care for the asthma patient. Dr. Rosiello is proud of all the different programs the Pulmonary Division has been able to offer. “We built the COPD and Asthma Clinic programs from scratch. We have the ability to do that because the staff works together so well here. It’s allowed us to do a lot of great things for our patients at Reliant Medical Group.”

As a pulmonary physician, Dr. Rosiello works with some patients that have a curable disease and some that do not. “For me, it’s just as satisfying to help a patient with a chronic disease maintain an improved and more satisfying life as it is to cure someone of an illness. In many ways, your long-term patients become like family to you, and I really enjoy that.”