So this next year, a high priority for me is that soft aspect of what makes the ACR click. We need to give our members a face-to-face meeting, with interpersonal experiences that prompt members to become volunteers, and volunteers to become leaders of the College.
With that in mind—and ACR Convergence 2022 behind us—our goal for ACR Convergence 2023 in San Diego is to get our face-to-face mojo back without losing the benefits of the virtual offerings. I think the professional societies that do that right, that thread the needle by combining a great face-to-face meeting with on-demand, top-of-the-line content, will be the societies of the future. We plan to be one of them.
TR: You mentioned that one of the things you learned as a new volunteer was that the ACR does far more than you knew. What is something you would like new members to know about the College?
Dr. White: I think most members view the ACR primarily as a meeting and are unaware of how much our advocacy efforts benefit our members, whether you’re a community rheumatologist, researcher, nurse practitioner or any of the many types of rheumatology professional under the ACR/ARP umbrella. We are advocating on national and state levels for all of our members who work every day in the trenches for the benefit of their patients. (Note: See sidebar for a snapshot of the services provided by the ACR.)
TR: Speaking of learning new things, what is something ACR members may not know about you, but might like to know?
Dr. White: At the ACR, my involvement has been heavily on the advocacy side, so I think people see me in that vein and are surprised to find that I was an immunologist before I was a rheumatologist, or that our research ends up in the Journal of Virology, for instance.
I guess that’s one of the benefits of being a volunteer at the ACR—you can explore so many different areas of our profession.
Leslie Mertz, PhD, is a freelance science journalist based in northern Michigan.