Trainees Discuss Pros, Cons of Rheumatology Residency Rotation

With instructors from different educational backgrounds, including training abroad, the program also creates an inviting platform for conversations regarding global perspectives of healthcare and the future of medicine.

Of course, the patient encounters themselves allow crucial educational benefit in the times of the most innovative treatments in rheumatology. Overall, the elective remains a must prior to completion of internal medicine training.

Gabrielle Thottam, MD

Walking into the outpatient rheumatology clinic on Nov. 1, 2016, was an exciting point in my career. Before even walking into the rheumatology solarium, I knew I wanted to become a rheumatologist. My month-long rheumatology rotation at Roger Williams Medical Center not only further cemented my decision, but also increased my awareness of the vast amount of discovery that lies ahead for this field.

The elective is extremely well organized and exposes those in the rotation to multiple aspects of rheumatology. Attending daily lectures on various rheumatologic diseases, developing plans of care for patients in the clinic and improving my procedural skills made this elective very comprehensive and beneficial. The attendings and fellows provide a balanced mixture of clinical and academic education.

I left the rotation feeling much more confident in my musculoskeletal examination skills and also enhanced my knowledge of the diagnosis and treatment of rheumatologic diseases. I learned the practice of rheumatology is uniquely tailored to each patient. It is a field in which you are not only challenged to make a diagnosis across multiple organ systems, but also to develop treatment plans for patients that target their disease and contribute to their quality of life.

On the topic of improvements, I think the rotation would benefit from the availability of an in-clinic ultrasound to further our skills with identifying crystallopathies and improving joint injections and aspirations. I also think adding a lecture that reviews the principles of immunology would be useful to this already comprehensive clinical elective.

Unique to my experience during this elective was how my days were spent with fascinating and brilliant women. Our diversity and backgrounds made my days at the clinic not only intellectually stimulating but enjoyable as well. It was empowering to be surrounded by such strong women in medicine, and I feel very grateful to have been a part of that.

My experience made me even more excited to apply to a rheumatology fellowship and to have the opportunity to be involved in such an innovative and important field.

Final Notes

I would like to emphasize the importance of reviewing the elective experience through soliciting and listening to residents’ thoughts about the elective. One can note the advantage of doing so in an informal discussion setting rather than through computer forms that everyone is tired of. Ultimately, the elective may be a pipeline to rheumatology fellowship and also helps facilitate new relationships, which lead to good communication and appropriate referrals from community internists in the future.