The ACR Knowledge Bowl Playbook

Engage in your division’s Journal Club. This will keep you up to date on recent and landmark studies that frequently arise in the Knowledge Bowl question bank. Read the ACR’s peer-reviewed journals and The Rheumatologist. Doing so can translate to more points in the Knowledge Bowl—and let’s face it: It will make you a better rheumatologist.

The Massachusetts General Hospital team, House of DMARDs (2020), with their mascot, the narwhal. (Click to enlarge.)

While keeping up to date with the literature is critical, it does less to help with answering questions on esoteric topics, which may be uncommon in practice, but lead to popular Knowledge Bowl questions. Studying for these requires a more focused investment. Board preparation resources, such as Rheumatology Secrets, ACR CARE Questions and the University of Iowa Hawkeyes Rheumatology Question Bank—among many others—are great ways to get exposure to topics you may not often encounter in routine clinical care.

One important feature distinguishes studying for the Knowledge Bowl from studying for other purposes: Your patient and board examiners are usually happy if you know about the association between RA and pneumoconiosis, but this can translate into even more points in the Knowledge Bowl if you know it is termed Caplan syndrome. Eponyms and trial names are popular answers in the Knowledge Bowl, so when preparing, take the extra time to commit those details to memory.

Be aware of popular Knowledge Bowl categories & topics. Beyond the classic rheumatology study materials, it helps to know what categories of questions typically show up year after year. These include advocacy, history, art and popular culture, and embedded puns within the category name.

Advocacy topics include the basics of insurance and compensation relevant to the practice of rheumatology. An easier question might ask about your knowledge of RheumPAC or how the ACR’s RISE Registry aids in practice quality improvement.

Where to look for this information? Reading The Rheumatologist is a start. For history, art and popular culture, you can start by making a list of famous people with rheumatic diseases. Did you know that the painter Renoir had severely debilitating rheumatoid arthritis? Or that Paul Klee died of complications from scleroderma? Perhaps more recent popular culture is a breeze for you, but are you up to date on the rheumatic diagnoses of such celebrities as Selena Gomez (lupus) or Dan Reynolds, lead singer of Imagine Dragons (ankylosing spondylitis)?