The ACR Knowledge Bowl Playbook

Final round: Do you wager it all? Before the question is revealed for the final round, you will receive a cryptically named category, and your team will have to determine how many points you want to wager. If you answer correctly, you will get those points added to your total. If you answer incorrectly, you will lose all of those points. Calculating your wager may require some quick mental math, as well as a self-assessment of your confidence in your knowledge of the category. If your team has a healthy lead on the others, and you know they cannot catch up to your point total even if they wager it all, then you have the luxury of putting down one point. If the teams are close, you need to strategize. How well do you think you know that category?

The questions are often very tough. For example, in 2019, the answer was nemaline rod myopathy, a disease entity that was found only as a bullet point in a table in the available edition of Rheumatology Secrets. In a prior year, the answer was STING-associated vasculopathy with onset in infancy (SAVI), a condition that had just been described in The New England Journal of Medicine some months before.

Wager carefully. You can’t cheat because your answers are written on paper or a whiteboard as dramatic countdown music plays.

Concluding Remarks

Not familiar with the Knowledge Bowl and feeling a bit left out? You can peruse snapshots from prior games on Twitter, using the hashtag #ACRKnowledgeBowl. One of us, @rheum_cat, has been particularly excited to live tweet challenging questions.

If you’re considering applying to compete in the Knowledge Bowl, we hope you put yourself out there. Regardless of the outcome, a fun time is guaranteed for all. To those who will go on to compete, we hope our tips are helpful as you prepare for the day. No matter the outcome, you will learn a lot about rheumatology in the process and build great camaraderie with your co-fellows.

To everyone else, make sure to come to the Knowledge Bowl at ACR Convergence 2023 and show your support for the brave contestants.

Guy Katz, MD, is a rheumatologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. He has clinical and research interests in IgG4-related disease, systemic vasculitis and medical education.

Joanna Marco, MD, is an assistant professor of medicine at Drexel University, Philadelphia, and a clinical rheumatologist at Allegheny Health Network, where she is involved in graduate medical education and co-directs the Autoimmune Lung Disease Clinic.