My Rheumatology Research Workshop 2024 Experience

Dr. Ioannis Koulas presents a poster of his research to faculty and attendees at the 2024 Rheumatology Research Workshop.

My Personal Experience

I had some memorable moments interacting with the other participants during the workshop as well as outside, in the beautiful city of Denver. I am also grateful to the mentors we had during our small group sessions, namely Naomi Patel, MD, MPH, James Rosenbaum, MD, and Rebecca Sadun, MD, PhD, who were incredibly helpful in their feedback and guidance.

Another personal highlight was when I met the Rheum Champions. These incredibly hard-working patient advocates are devoted to raising awareness of rheumatic diseases and building communication bridges between physicians and patients. In our clinical work as physicians, it often easy to forget that we are not just treating a disease; rather, we work together with the patient to improve their lives, and it was beautiful for me to interact with these (true) champions as colleagues, discussing my research with them and getting feedback from their own perspective.

I also had the unique chance to have an inspiring “fireside chat” about the future of research in rheumatology with Liona Fraenkel, MD, MPH, vice president of the Rheumatology Research Foundation, as well as two Rheum Champions/patient advocates who have devoted their lives into improving patient education and standards of care.

The famous Greek philosopher and lawmaker, Solon, said, “I grow old ever learning many things” [in translation], which I think is a nice reflection of how impactful the Rheumatology Research Workshop can be to everyone who participates in it, thanks to the opportunities for close mentorship it provides to researchers from different career stages and backgrounds.

Learning is an integral part of our life from beginning to end, and the workshop is the perfect example of how the ACR strives to bring together its community to grow. In my case, I feel the feedback I received will help me advance my current research project, which happens to involve a different aspect of learning: training sophisticated privacy-preserving large language models for the identification of rheumatic disease flares from electronic health records.

Final Notes

I am grateful to Dr. Hannah Kim, MD, MS and Ms. Latonya Trower for the opportunity to express my experience of the workshop through this article, as well as the editorial team of The Rheumatologist for sharing my story. Finally, I would like to thank my project’s supervisor, Dr. Konstantinos Loupasakis for supporting my participation in the program and of course the ACR and the ECI subcommittee for this unforgettable experience!