Q: What is it like to receive an award from your peers?
A: To me, it’s a reflection of all of the mentoring and support that I’ve received from so many people over the years.
ACR Distinguished Service Award
Robert Yood, MD, MD, FACP, FACR
Chief of rheumatology, Reliant Medical Group and Saint Vincent Hospital, Worcester, Mass.; clinical professor of medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School
Background: Sometimes a career is put in focus in one day. Dr. Yood put more than 30 years of membership and service into the ACR. There were multiple standing committees, he was a board member, and he helped craft guidelines for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. But one moment is forever etched in his memory.
The year was 2001, and Dr. Yood was chair of the ACR’s Government Affairs Committee at a time when the organization was making concerted efforts to be more proactive in Washington, D.C. The committee had scheduled its inaugural ACR Capitol Hill reception, and Dr. Yood was excited to be in the nation’s capital, surrounded by like-minded colleagues from all over the country for a committee meeting prior to the reception. The only problem: The calendar read 9/11.
“I will never forget it,” Dr. Yood recalls. “A hotel manager came to our meeting room and said there had been an incident. A few minutes later, they told us what had happened. We sat there stunned. After a few minutes, I said, ‘Meeting adjourned.’”
Dr. Yood first got involved with the ACR through participation in CORC network activities in 1986. He was a member of the ACR Board of Directors from 2004–2007, and was chair of the ACR Ethics and Conflicts of Interest Committee.
Q: What has the ACR meant to you?
A: Personally, it has been invaluable. It has been a great opportunity and privilege to work with both the staff at the ACR, who are incredibly dedicated and good at what they do, and the physicians and allied health professionals who volunteer and are equally dedicated. If not for the ACR, I never would have had the opportunity to get to know and learn from so many leaders in our field. It has rounded out my career and helped me immensely professionally and personally.
Q: What does an award for distinguished service mean to you?
A: I think it recognizes someone who has contributed to how the ACR functions and interacts with its members. What I have really liked about the ACR is all the great people I have met. Distinguished service, in my case, must mean I have been around for a long time.