President’s Perspective: Deborah Dyett Desir, MD, Assumes ACR Presidency

Deborah Dyett Desir, MD

Deborah Dyett Desir, MD, assumes her role as the 87th president of the ACR with great enthusiasm, determination and a lengthy agenda. She is the first Black person to serve as ACR president.

About Dr. Desir

Dr. Desir aspired to be a physician from a young age. She may have been influenced by her father, whom she accompanied on house calls in his role as a family medicine physician, or perhaps she was swayed by watching her younger brother go through several serious health issues in his early years. After graduating from Harvard with a BA in Biochemistry (cum laude), she graduated from Yale School of Medicine (cum laude, Alpha Omega Alpha [AOA] Honor Medical Society).

Although her career path in medicine was generally predetermined, her journey to rheumatology was not without its twists and turns. During her medical school years, she commenced her research in an infectious disease laboratory and completed a prize-winning thesis on white blood cells, which she presented at the annual Student Research Day.

Upon completion of her residency in internal medicine, she began interviewing for fellowships in infectious disease. Well into the interview process, she became increasingly drawn to rheumatology and decided to alter her course. She contacted Stephen Malawista, MD, who was the section chief of rheumatology at Yale at the time and who subsequently served as ACR president in 1991–1992 (b. 1934–d. 2013), to inquire about a rheumatology fellowship. Coincidentally, he remembered her from her thesis presentation at Student Research Day three years earlier and offered her a fellowship in rheumatology a few days later.

Dr. Desir began her career with the goal of becoming a successful academic researcher. During her fellowship, her work was published in top journals in the field and she was awarded a prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Faculty Development Grant, putting her well on her way to achieving her goal. However, she also felt drawn to clinical rheumatology, which ultimately became the focus of her professional career.

Dr. Desir accepted a position as a rheumatologist at a staff-model HMO (health maintenance organization), where she spent seven years. She then opened her own private practice, the Arthritis & Osteoporosis Center P.C., Hamden, Conn. The center thrived, at one point employing four physicians and a nurse practitioner at three locations.

In 2019, Dr. Desir joined the Yale Section of Rheumatology, Allergy & Immunology as a full-time faculty member and medical director of YM Rheumatology Hamden.