With a background in gerontology, Ms. Crawford never anticipated that a medical diagnosis would lead her down a career path in rheumatology research, but it’s one that has brought her immense satisfaction.
Volunteerism & Advocacy
As a long-time member of the ARHP, Ms. Crawford has been an active volunteer in several capacities, serving on the Education, Research and Ethics committees, as well as on the Annual Meeting Planning Committee. She is a regular presenter at the ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, and this year she gave a talk about getting a research practice started.
Her latest endeavor is to serve as the ARHP representative to RheumPAC, the ACR’s nonpartisan political action committee, which works on behalf of rheumatology practitioners and their patients. She just recently waded into the advocacy realm, visiting Pennsylvania’s capitol, Harrisburg, with the Arthritis Foundation and participating in several Capitol Hill days in Washington, D.C., with the ACR/ARHP.
Her interest in advocacy was born of the same appreciation she has for patients who make clinical trials possible. As residents of Philadelphia, one of the first industrial cities in America, many of the patients Arthritis Group enrolls are “blue collar people in working class neighborhoods,” Ms. Crawford says. “These people are changing the world, and these same people can’t get the drugs they helped get approved.”
Because of politics and prior authorization policies, complicated insurance issues and out-of-reach copays, many of these patients cannot access the “life-changing” biologics that have transformed what it means to receive a diagnosis of rheumatic disease, says Ms. Crawford. “And now [politicians are] talking about pre-existing conditions again, and this makes me crazy, because we have the tools, and we need to give them to people.”
The advocacy work has been meaningful, exciting and enlightening, she says.
Outside Interests
When Crawford is not at work, she is fulfilling another one of her passions: living history. As a costumed actor, “I teach 18th-century medical programs at schools and museums and parks,” says Ms. Crawford, noting that she has a “huge collection of 18th-century medical artifacts and books.” (Editor’s note: The Rheumatologist profiled Ms. Crawford’s outside interests in Rheum After 5 in January 2015.)
Her hobby gives her access to interesting historical stories, especially because she spends time poring through the earliest records at Pennsylvania Hospital, which was founded in 1751 by Ben Franklin and Dr. Thomas Ward.
Each of her children has also joined her as a living historian at various points along the way. In fact, her younger son is “a private in the 17th Regiment of Foot, His Majesty,” Ms. Crawford says, and her daughter, who lives in London, will occasionally accompany her to a ball.
At 65, Ms. Crawford has no immediate plans to retire from her research role, although she knows retirement is on the horizon. With a background in gerontology, she also never anticipated a medical diagnosis would lead her down a career path in rheumatology research, but it’s one that has brought her immense satisfaction.
“I love what I do,” she says. “It’s one part science, one part sales, one part stand-up comedy.”
