ARHP Launches Updated Fundamentals of Rheumatology Course

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The ARHP is pleased to announce the relaunch of its highly successful online Fundamentals of Rheumatology Course (FRC). This updated version is earning high marks from users and reviewers for ease of navigation, choice of presentation formats, depth of research and separate learning activities (i.e., modules) for the care of adult and pediatric patients.

According to scientific editor Geri B. Neuberger, RN, MN, EdD, and emerita professor in the School of Nursing, University of Kansas, “The expanded FRC now offers 10 online CME learning activities to help you meet your educational needs.” The online course provides an evidence-based overview of adult and pediatric rheumatic conditions, nonpharmacological and pharmacological care, and additional information on insurance preauthorizations for those new or transitioning into a rheumatology practice.

10 Learning Activities

To revise the course, the ARHP eLearning Subcommittee completed an extensive review and then created updated content in collaboration with experienced rheumatology clinicians [see sidebar, below.]

The FRC’s original five modules were expanded to create 10 learning activities. The modules on assessment and medications are now in separate learning activities for the child and the adult. Nursing Management of the Infusion Patient and Insurance Pre­authorization and Funding for Medications are now individual activities, and two new activities—Consultation with Other Health Professionals in the Management of the Child with Rheumatic Disease and Con­sultation with Other Health Professionals in the Management of the Adult with Rheumatic Disease—were also created.

“All of these activities,” says Dr. Neuberger, “highlight the unique and essential contributions of other healthcare professionals to the care of patients with rheumatic disease.”

Reviewers & Users Comment

Pediatric rheumatologist Carol Lindsley, MD, professor emerita, University of Kansas Medical Center, has been a long-time collaborator with Dr. Neuberger on other projects and agreed to review and edit activities of the expanded FRC. “The activities were generally very well done,” she notes, and required few edits. “They are good teaching activities for a whole variety of allied health professionals.”

Dr. Lindsley pioneered the establishment of outreach clinics in rural Kansas for children with rheumatic disease. She says, “one challenge in smaller sites and outreach clinics is to obtain allied health professionals who are trained and knowledgeable and can support the clinics. So these kinds of teaching activities [like those in the FRC] could help people not working at an academic center.”

Another rheumatologist specializing in the care of adults with rheumatic diseases, Samar Gupta, MD, also read and evaluated all of the Fundamentals of Rheumatology modules. Dr. Gupta is an associate professor of medicine at the University Michigan and chief, VA Clinical Rheumatology & Medical Education, Ann Arbor, Mich.