The 2022 ARP President’s & Merit Awards

Heather Benham, DNP, APRN, CPNP-PC, has been a certified pediatric nurse practitioner in the Rheumatology Department at Scottish Rite for Children, Dallas, for nearly 20 years. She received her Doctor of Nursing Practice and Master of Science in Nursing from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland.

She is a member of the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance (CARRA), where she is the research coordinator for the CARRA registry and is active in the Musculoskeletal Ultrasound Workgroup. She holds certification in musculoskeletal ultrasound through the ACR.

Dr. Benham loves to interact with her patients and families through the use of bedside ultrasound, both for diagnostic and interventional purposes. She has also developed a musculoskeletal ultrasound curriculum for the pediatric rheumatology fellows at her institution.

“I am very honored to be receiving the ARP Distinguished Clinician award. I have been working as a nurse practitioner in pediatric rheumatology for nearly 20 years and it is wonderful to be honored for the clinical work for which I am so passionate,” says Dr. Benham. “I owe much of my success to the team I work with on a daily basis and the patients and families who continue to amaze me with their resilience.”

As a member of the ARP, Dr. Benham has served as the ARP representative to the Committee on Rheumatologic Care, as well as serving on the ARP Practice Committee, the ACR/ARP Annual Meeting Planning Committee and the Nurse Practitioner/Physician’s Assistant Curriculum Task Force. She currently is the ARP representative to the Pediatric Rheumatology Collaborative Study Group (PRCSG) and the ARP representative to the Rheumatology Research Foundation Impact Advisory Council.

Dr. Benham’s conference presentations include A Swollen Joint: The Nuts and Bolts of Pediatric Rheumatology, 2014 Regional CME Conference, Texas Academy of Physician Assistants; Update on the Treatment of Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis, 2015 Conference on Pediatric Health Care, National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners; The Use of Ultrasound Guided Steroid Injections in the Treatment of Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis ( JIA), Pre-Brandon Carrell Conference, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital, June 2016; and A Swollen Joint: An Overview of Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis ( JIA) and Related Conditions, Pediatric Orthopaedic Practitioners Society Annual Conference, May 2018. She has numerous publications to her name and has served as the Scottish Rite study coordinator for research trials.

Distinguished Educator Award

This year’s Distinguished Educator Award was presented to Linda Li, PT, PhD, for demonstrating excellence in teaching patients and students/trainees. Dr. Li is a professor and Harold Robinson/Arthritis Society Chair in the Department of Physical Therapy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and senior scientist at Arthritis Research Canada, Vancouver.