It is nine months into the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. and the third wave is upon us, overwhelming hospital systems in many states across the country. But the alarms are being sounded for another looming pandemic as well. As early as spring 2020, significant increases were documented in the prevalence of depression and anxiety,…
New Appointments for Carlos Lozada, MD In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Carlos J. Lozada, MD, FACP, FACR, professor of clinical medicine, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, has expanded his professional and volunteer duties. In May he was appointed chief (interim) of the Division of Rheumatology at the Miller School of Medicine,…
Peter Grayson, MD, MSc, a tenure track investigator at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Intramural Research Program, Bethesda, Md., sometimes wonders how his life would have turned out if the band he was playing in during college had signed a recording contract with a major record label. Dr. Grayson has been playing the piano…
Rheumatology has arguably benefited like no other field from the proliferation of an increasingly effective pipeline of therapeutics. These medications have dramatically raised the bar for clinical outcomes for our patients in a way that we could not have envisioned a short generation ago. With such therapeutic progress now reaching a widening circle of rheumatic…
As the new chair of the Registries & Health Information Technology Committee, William F. Harvey, MD, MSc, hopes to expand representation of patient diversity in the RISE registry and increase the use of registry data for research.
Marcus Snow, MD, FACR, had his first exposure to rheumatology in a rotation during his residency at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha. James O’Dell, MD, Theodore Mikuls, MD, Jay Moore, MD, Lynn Klassen, MD, and other physicians showed how rheumatology could be the perfect mix of a narrow clinical focus with interesting patient…
In early 2021, Lindsey A. Criswell, MD, MPH, DSc, one of rheumatology’s preeminent autoimmune genetics researchers, will become the new director of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. She will be the first woman to hold that post. Dr. Criswell will be leaving her current position as vice chancellor of research…
I never wake up late. This wasn’t always the case. All the way through residency, I was completely dependent on alarm clocks to keep from oversleeping. So much so that when my alarm clock broke halfway through my internship, I replaced it the next day. I remember driving in the middle of the night to…
“It’s like winning Powerball.” For months, there has been a steady trickle of questions from my patients, asking for my opinion about the new vaccines being developed to prevent COVID-19. More to the point, they want to know if they should be vaccinated. After some fits and starts, I finally struck upon a pat answer…
In case you missed it, on Nov. 20, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a department within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announced that it will overhaul the payment system for Medicare Part B (i.e., infusion) drugs on Jan. 1, 2021. The plan is called the Most Favored Nation (MFN)…