2013 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting: Rheumatologists In the Spotlight

Q: How has your administrative role evolved the past decade?

A: It’s been professionalized. There is more paperwork than there used to be. It’s become more important to have help and support to do the job. At the same time, I do think that there are positive benefits from the professionalization of the role. I think that the rules have helped us get rid of our blind spots, helped us recognize where we have had inadequacies.

Q: A number of your graduates have become program directors. How gratifying is it to see fellows grow and succeed?

A: I think that’s how every program director thinks. If you don’t, you probably shouldn’t be a program director.

The mentees need to succeed on their own terms. They can’t have my success; they have to have their own success. I honestly am most gratified that most of the people who trained 10 or 15 years ago with me still have an affinity for NYU. That means is it was a good time for them, and it wasn’t like they were just moving on. They left with appreciation, and that’s really gratifying.

Dr. Rosenbaum

ACR Distinguished Clinician Scholar Award

James Rosenbaum, MD

Chair of the Division of Arthritis and Rheumatic Diseases, Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), and Chief of Ophthalmology at Legacy Devers Eye Institute, both in Portland, Ore.

Background: It’s often difficult to call somebody unique—but Dr. Rosenbaum is exactly that.

How many rheumatologists are the child of a rheumatology doctor so famous his memoir was turned into a movie named “The Doctor”? And, if that’s not enough, how many of those folks also serve as chair for an ophthalmology department?

“I have a unique niche,” Dr. Rosenbaum says. “I’m one of the few people in the world who have approached eye inflammation from the perspective of rheumatology, and that’s enabled me to see things a little differently, to use an ophthalmic verb.”

After graduating with honors from Yale Medical School, he pursued rheumatology, as had his father, Edward Rosenbaum, MD. He did his internship and residency at Stanford University and took his first faculty appointment at the University of California, San Francisco.

He’s been at OHSU since 1985.

He is a former president of the American Uveitis Society and has authored more than 400 papers and book chapters dealing primarily with the interface between ophthalmology and rheumatology.