As usual, your items in The Rheumatologist remain timely. In the case of attracting medical students into rheumatology, your piece is also timeless. For many years now, I have recommended to various officers of the ACR that we obtain a list of students and their home addresses when they are admitted to medical school. At…
I want to thank you for writing the article, “Attracting More Medical Students to Rheumatology” for The Rheumatologist (online, October 2015). I am a senior at Georgetown University now, and I have recently applied to medical school. I have considered pursuing a career in rheumatology, and your article has inspired me to stay on that…
After its December meeting, the ACR Government Affairs Committee has determined the federal and state issues the College will focus its advocacy efforts on in 2016. These issues include ensuring implementation of the Medicare Access & CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 protects rheumatologists, creating an arthritis research program at the Department of Defense and more…
LONDON (Reuters)—The number of new drugs approved in the U.S. this year has already topped last year’s 18-year high, yet large pharmaceutical companies are still struggling to get a decent return on their research dollars. In fact, returns on research and development (R&D) spending by the world’s top drug makers have fallen to just 4.2%,…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—The “safety culture” of a hospital may be just as important in delivering high-quality surgical patient care as more technical issues like surgeon skill and operating room equipment, according to a new study. “The study supports what many surgeons have known for a long time, and that is that the organizational culture…
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters)—Pharmaceuticals firm Valeant, under mounting pressure from Congress and prosecutors over its drug pricing, has hired an attorney in Washington, D.C., and crisis public relations experts with political connections, according to sources familiar with the matter. The move, confirmed by sources and through documents viewed by Reuters, signals a shift for Valeant Pharmaceuticals,…
In a study of patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, researchers found that MRI scans can be used to detect the muscle water changes that precede marked intramuscular fat accumulation that may contribute to the disease’s presentation. MRI biomarkers may prove useful in clinical trials for therapies for this and other neuromuscular disorders by enabling researchers to measure disease progression…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Careful use of antibiotics and corticosteroids can substantially improve the safety of autologous hematopoietic stem transplantation (HSCT) in patients with refractory Crohn’s disease (CD), researchers from Spain report. “Autologous HSCT is feasible but it is associated with severe adverse events and even mortality,” Dr. Elena Ricart from Hospital Clinic de Barcelona tells…
(Reuters Health)—Water- or land-based exercise should provide some short-term benefit in pain management for hip osteoarthritis, though there are few well-designed trials testing it, according to a new review. “It is nice to finally have some hip-specific data, as hip and knee osteoarthritis are often grouped together, and it’s almost certain that there are differences…
According to former ACR President Michael Weinblatt, MD, the future of drug therapies for patients with RA rests in the careful and intelligent prescription of current medications and treatment combinations, as well as better patient access through lower costs…