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You are here: Home / Author: Simon M. Helfgott, MD

Simon M. Helfgott, MD

Physician Editor Simon M. Helfgott, MD, is associate professor of medicine in the division of rheumatology, immunology and allergy at Harvard Medical School in Boston. He serves as director of education and fellowship training for the division and is actively involved in the curriculum redesign at the medical school.

Articles by Simon M. Helfgott, MD

Treating Rheumatologic Illnesses in Athletes

Treating Rheumatologic Illnesses in Athletes

May 13, 2016 • By Simon M. Helfgott, MD

Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. … The potential for greatness lives within each of us. —Wilma Rudolph, U.S. Olympic sprinter & winner of three gold medals From Spinnaker to Wheelchair It can be an unnerving experience when the patient you are about to see is young and… [Read More]

Technological Advances Linked to Medical Misadventures

April 15, 2016 • By Simon M. Helfgott, MD

For keen students of American politics, the unending intrigue of the 2016 presidential race has been riveting. With an assemblage of aspiring candidates that, at its start, included a bevy of U.S. senators and former governors, a media-savvy real estate mogul, a renowned Hopkins neurosurgeon and an ophthalmologist, political junkies among us have feasted on… [Read More]

Trying to Parse True Meaning of Pain Can be Challenging for Rheumatologists

Trying to Parse True Meaning of Pain Can Be Challenging for Rheumatologists

March 15, 2016 • By Simon M. Helfgott, MD

Discussing aching joints, sore muscles and tender limbs is all in our day’s work. We are rheumatologists; we deal in misery. But trying to parse the true meaning of these terms is among the most vexing of clinical challenges.... [Read More]

What Listening to Lungs Might Teach About Rheumatic Disease

February 17, 2016 • By Simon M. Helfgott, MD

One of your first clinical assignments as a medical student was likely to have been the lung exam. Its key descriptors may still resonate in your mind: inspection, palpation, percussion and auscul­tation. Proudly parading down the hospital corridors, your newly purchased stethoscope snugly tucked inside your lab coat pocket, you carefully place its cold metal… [Read More]

Gene Manipulation Has Potential to Alter Genomes, Impact Society

Gene Manipulation Has Potential to Alter Genomes, Impact Society

January 19, 2016 • By Simon M. Helfgott, MD

Every so often, a major scientific breakthrough profoundly alters the trajectory of scientific research. In the 1960s, microbiologists sparked the recombinant-DNA revolution with the discovery that bacteria have innate immune systems based on restriction enzymes. These enzymes bind and cut invading viral genomes at specific short sequences, and scientists rapidly repurposed them to cut and… [Read More]

Looking Back on Rheumatology in 2015, Leaping Forward to the Year Ahead

December 16, 2015 • By Simon M. Helfgott, MD

My dear friends, we come to praise Caesar. As we march toward 2016, we ought to acknowledge the great Roman emperor’s role in creating a proper calendar. At the start of Caesar’s reign, the calendar year lasted 355 days, 10¼ days fewer than the time it took the earth to fully orbit the sun.1 Although… [Read More]

SSNHL was first described in 1979 in a series of 18 patients from Iowa whose acute hearing loss was not explained by the usual causes.

When Sense Disorders Signal Immune System Interactions

November 17, 2015 • By Simon M. Helfgott, MD

I sometimes find myself mired in sticky clinical circumstances. I am facing a distraught patient who is seeking my opinion about a condition that, according to some, may not truly belong in the rheumatologist’s bailiwick. Case example: hearing loss. The Steroid Test Sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) and its relative, autoimmune inner ear disease (AIED),… [Read More]

Attracting More Medical Students to Rheumatology

Attracting More Medical Students to Rheumatology

October 13, 2015 • By Simon M. Helfgott, MD

Updated Oct. 22, 2015 (revised to delete inaccurate statistics) The cold, hard facts: This year’s rheumatology fellowship applicant pool resembles those of prior years. It is extremely diverse; every continent is represented, save Antarctica. It is somewhat larger, due in part to the growing influx of graduates from the cluster of Caribbean-based medical schools, where… [Read More]

Connective Tissue Disorders Lack Societal Concern, Financial Support

September 15, 2015 • By Simon M. Helfgott, MD

“Love is the bone and sinew of my curse.” —Sylvia Plath Cutting the Cord Here’s the problem: No one grows up wanting to seek the cure for bursitis—or tendonitis or just about any of the other seemingly mundane maladies afflicting our body’s scaffolding. Meniscal tears, fasciitis, tendinopathies—the list is endless. Chances are, your college essay… [Read More]

Can Systemic Inflammation Influence Mood?

August 17, 2015 • By Simon M. Helfgott, MD

The Friday night press release: When a politician or any public figure needs to disclose unfavorable news, chances are they will release it sometime on a late Friday afternoon or evening, hoping that nobody is paying attention. In fact, this behavior was coined “the take out the trash day” on the television political drama, The… [Read More]

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