University of California at San Francisco Rheumatology Division Recognized for Excellence

Mary Beth Humphrey, MD, PhD, division chief of rheumatology, immunology and allergy, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, experienced this attitude firsthand when she trained as a fellow from 2001–2004. One example of the intentional cultivation of collegiality was the monthly evening journal club. “The entire basic research faculty and the clinical faculty, like Ken Fye and Ken Sack, would also be there,” she recalls. “I think it helped keep everyone from the four different campuses on the same page, despite the distance.”

Seated (front row, from left): James Andrews, Franziska Matzkies, Clara Lin, David Wofsy, Lianne Gensler, Emily von Scheven, Jinoos Yazdany, Mimi Margaretten, Andy Gross; second row (from left): Julie Zikherman, Gabriela Schmajuk, Mehrdad Matloubian, Ephraim Engleman, Patti Katz, Jennifer Barton, Adam Carlson; standing (from left): David Daikh, Paul Gunther, Art Weiss, Ed Yelin, Kenneth Sack, Mary Nakamura, Lindsey Criswell, Wally Epstein, Sarah Goglin, Robert Su, Jonathan Graf, Gerson Bernhard, Sharon Chung, Maria Dall’Era, Terry Berkemeier, Patty Chen and Judith Ashouri.

The Funding Advantage

Strong financial support also bolsters the program’s depth. The division receives funding from the NIH, the Veterans Administration, the Northern California office of the Great Western Region of the Arthritis Foundation and private foundation funding from the Rosalind Russell/Ephraim P. Engleman Rheumatology Research Center.

The latter source—and one of the most important, according to Dr. Wofsy and Ephraim P. Engleman, MD, director of the center—blossomed because of Dr. Engleman’s work with the late Rosalind Russell and the National Arthritis Act’s Commission, which was established in 1974. Dr. Engleman had been a member of the UCSF Division since the 1940s and set up its first rheumatology clinic in 1947. In the 1960s, Rosalind Russell developed severe RA, and Dr. Engleman says she “complained bitterly” that few physicians knew very much about arthritis and that medical school training about arthritis was deficient.

Dr. Engleman got to know Ms. Russell “pretty well,” when she served as a public member of the Commission. She died in 1976; and three years later, in 1979, after several NIH site visits, The Rosalind Russell Center for Rheumatology Research was established. Creation of a fund-raising Board of Directors quickly followed, and in the 35 years that Dr. Engleman has been director, the foundation has supported five academic chairs in rheumatology, provided partial support for 130 rheumatology trainees and supplied supplemental funds for faculty members. (The name of the arthritis center at UCSF was recently changed to the Rosalind Russell/Ephraim P. Engleman Rheumatology Research Center.)