Rheumatologists on the Move, May 2016

Associate Editor of The Rheumatologist on Working Sabbatical

Maura Daly Iversen, PT, DPT, SD, MPH, professor and chair of the Department of Physical Therapy, Movement, and Rehabilitation Sciences at Northeastern University, a behavioral scientist in the Division of Rheumatology, Immunology, and Allergy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, Boston, and associate editor of The Rheumatologist, is spending her sabbatical at the University of North Carolina.

She is working with Joanne Jordan at the Thurston Arthritis Group, which has been following an osteoarthritis cohort for years. Dr. Iversen is performing analysis on the data the group has collected regarding how socio-economic factors affect participation in physical therapy and physical activity.

“The North Carolina community-based cohort is more racially and economically diverse than we see in Boston, so it is more interesting,” she says.

After she completes her work at the Thurston Arthritis Group, Dr. Iversen’s interesting work will continue in Sweden. She recently was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to spend 2017 developing and testing novel outcome measures for children and adults with arthritis.

Benaroya Research Institute Names New President

Jane Buckner, MD, is the new president of the Benaroya Research Institute (BRI) at Virginia Mason in Seattle. She succeeds Gerald Nepom, MD, PhD. Dr. Buckner served as associate director of BRI beginning in 2012. She is also the director of the BRI Translational Research Program, a principal investigator at BRI, rheumatologist at Virginia Mason Medical Center and an affiliate professor at the University of Washington, positions she will continue to hold.

“Dr. Buckner is a trusted colleague and a highly respected translational research investigator who has made significant contributions to the understanding of human autoimmune diseases,” says Gary S. Kaplan, MD, chair and CEO, Virginia Mason Health System.

She says her research is “unique, because my interest is how the immune system failed in many autoimmune diseases, not just rheumatoid arthritis. There is a strong link between rheumatoid arthritis and Type 1 diabetes. Many rheumatoid arthritis patients, and even their family members, have other autoimmune diseases, like multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease and psoriasis, which have been helped by rheumatoid arthritis medications.”

Studying those patients to discover the genetic underpinnings of these diseases leads to learning more about the immune responses in the diseases.

While she continues to see patients one day a week and work with her research group, as president, she says she “will work with the faculty to be sure they have what they need. I have the opportunity to step back and think more broadly. Do we need new technology or new people to make BRI better? All the science should be directed to what’s important to patients. The ultimate goal is to help patients.”

Careful Research Led to New Practice

Kenneth Van Dyke, DO, recently joined the Adena Health System in Chillicothe, Ohio. Dr. Van Dyke graduated from Des Moines University, College of Osteopathic Medicine in Des Moines, Iowa, and did his residency in internal medicine in Ohio and a rheumatology fellowship in New Orleans. He received an ACR Distinguished Fellow Award in 2015.