True story. My elderly father-in-law had horrible emphysema from decades of smoking. He prided himself on going to 'only the best doctors' in Kansas. He had a terrible, mucus-filled cough that was constant and distressing to listen to. He was always spitting up phlegm in a tissue. He had this cough for many years and one winter while visiting us in our state, his lung collapsed and we took him to the ER. While being treated, a young intern asked him how long he'd had that cough. He replied, "Oh, years."

The intern then asked, "Would you like me to get rid of that for you?" The intern had cultured some mucus from his lung while re-inflating it and found it was a common bacterial infection. Of course the answer was, "Yes!"

The doc gave him the correct antibiotic and had him cured in about 10 days. All those years of suffering and not one doctor had thought to culture his sputum!

So, maybe a sputum culture can be done for your boss to see if what he or she has is treatable?