President’s Corner: Dr. Langford’s Reflections on the ACR’s 2025

Working as a Team

Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, every professional organization has tackled new issues, to which the ACR is no different. While many of us expected to return to life as usual, we emerged needing to navigate within a changed world, both as individuals and as organizations.

Joining the Planning Committee at the Winter Rheumatology Symposium 2025. (Click to enlarge.)

The ACR/ARP has come through this time with strength and resiliency based on one shared characteristic—we have worked as a team with a steadfast focus on our mission. This team is broad and includes the Executive Committee, Board of Directors, committees, and very importantly, our dedicated ACR/ARP staff. There have been many vital keys to our team’s success, including effective communication, having unique and varied voices around the table, and making decisions based on serving the organizational mission. Our members represent the final element of that unified team and ensuring that ACR/ARP programs reflect the goals and needs of our membership has been essential toward achieving the organizational vision of advancing the future of rheumatology.

Mission Moments

This year, each meeting of the ACR Board of Directors began with individual board members discussing their own Mission Moments, a time or event meaningful to them when they saw the ACR mission in action. By the end of the year, seeing how these differing moments cut across each aspect of the ACR/ARP and reflected every discipline spoke to the ways in which our organization truly comes together as a team in serving our rheumatology community.

Meeting Members

During this year, two of my priority areas focused on education and enhancing connections between the ACR and its members. In addressing these, I endeavored to engage in every aspect of the ACR’s educational portfolio, including our in-person symposia. I also had opportunities in 2025 to attend several state and regional society meetings where rheumatologists and rheumatology professionals came together both for education and for advocacy regarding local and state issues impacting patient care.

Attending these meetings enabled me to engage one-on-one with members, listen to their needs and concerns, and hear their thoughts on the role of the ACR/ARP in their professional lives. These discussions brought home how the wide reach of the ACR/ARP can impact members in a positive way, which will always remain a foremost priority of our organization.