When Jeanne Scott first entered nursing school, she planned to become a women’s health nurse practitioner. She was not expecting her final clinical placement in rheumatology to change the entire course of her career. “Truthfully, I did not understand what rheumatology practitioners did until this introduction to the field,” says Ms. Scott, who describes being…
Each fall, the ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting takes place in a major U.S. city. More than 15,000 people fill the cavernous halls of the area convention center and nearby hotels to attend scientific and educational sessions, scan the latest data on posters and mingle with colleagues at the annual Presidents’ Reception. What most attendees may not…
Two years ago, veteran leaders of the Pennsylvania Rheumatology Society (PRS)—established 20 years prior—made an important decision to get early career rheumatologists more involved. “We thought younger rheumatologists were under-represented, and we wanted to give them a voice [so they would] better understand a wider range of practice issues our society could address,” explains Alfred…
In his clinic as a third-year fellow at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Ethan Craig, MD, MHS, says it’s not always easy to hear about patients struggling with step therapy or other barriers to treatment. However, as a member of the ACR’s Government Affairs Committee (GAC), he says his work to understand and improve policy…
Lurie Prize Goes to Autoimmune Researcher Zhijian “James” Chen, PhD, is this year’s recipient of the Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences for his 2012 discovery of the enzyme cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS). Dr. Chen received the prize at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health Award Ceremony in May. His work revealed the paradoxical…
In addition to the classroom and exam room, the other room Joseph Flood, MD, enjoys spending time in is the kitchen. With a mother who worked as a local tavern cook and a policeman father who enjoyed preparing tasty meals as much as arresting bad guys, Dr. Flood, a rheumatologist at the Columbus Arthritis Center…
If you had asked Ray Waldrup in 1981 what he would be doing in 2018, serving as the CEO of the largest rheumatology practice in the U.S. would probably not have been his first guess. Back then, as a young college student in Georgia, Mr. Waldrup took a job at a national jewelry retailer and…
Robert Finberg, MD, chair of medicine at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) in Worcester, describes Ellen M. Gravallese, MD, as one of a dying breed: a quadruple-threat physician who excels in basic science research, clinical care, teaching and administration. Dr. Gravallese holds the Myles J. McDonough Chair in Rheumatology, is professor of medicine and serves…
The ACR’s ability to address the big picture of rheumatologic care while focusing on individual practice and patient needs is one of the many things that attracted Luke Barré, MD, MPH, to the College early in his career. With training in both preventive medicine and rheumatology, Dr. Barré believes combined global and local views are…
With only 15 practicing rheumatologists in the state, members of West Virginia’s Rheumatology (WVR) Society knew early on they needed a stronger voice to help their patients. So WVR Society President Suzanne Gharib, MD, joined West Virginia’s state medical society, comprising physicians from a range of specialties. “It turns out our state medical society was…