“Yes sir.” That was the response of Raymond Scalettar, MD, DSc, FACP, when his commanding officer told him the U.S. Army wanted him to switch specialties—from gastroenterology to rheumatology. There was only one problem. Dr. Scalettar wasn’t exactly sure what that would entail. That was the mid-1950s. Back then, rheumatology was barely out of the womb. Residency…
The State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook was founded in 1957, and is currently known as Stony Brook University. In the 1970s, when the Health Sciences Center was still in the cocoon stages of its metamorphosis, the School of Medicine, under the brilliant stewardship of Marvin Kuschner, MD, was already on a mission…
From its beginnings as the Rheumatic Diseases Study Group (RDSG) in the early 1930s, NYU Langone Medical Center’s Division of Rheumatology has been built on a tradition of research and clinical care. Today’s division, with 24 full-time and 76 part-time faculty members, continues to push toward understanding the pathogenesis of rheumatic diseases and interventions to…
It’s not uncommon for a new patient to arrive at the medical offices of Alan Schenk, MD, in Laguna Woods, Calif., and immediately ask him about his musical career. In addition to being a board-certified rheumatologist for the past 32 years, Dr. Schenk is also an accomplished acoustic jazz guitarist and mandolin player. Music First “I…
Richard Meehan, MD, can still hear the distinctive sound of footsteps that would travel along a gravel path toward his wooden hut in the middle of the night in Iraq. “I’d hear somebody walk from the command post, either toward my hut or the operations officer who slept in the hut next to mine,” says…
When patients enter the rheumatology office of Ernie Katler, MD, FACP, FACR, in San Pablo, Calif., they’re transported to a galaxy far, far away. Hundreds of toys, props and figurines of Yoda, Darth Vader, Jabba the Hutt and other characters, as well as three original Star Wars movie posters, greet patients. If they’re lucky, patients…
HSS Holds First Rheumatology Gala The Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York City hosted a Rheumatology Gala in May. The event, held at The Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan, was held to increase awareness of HSS’s leading research and treatment of rheumatic diseases—particularly with “high-net worth people,” according to former ACR President Mary…
Jonathan Coblyn, MD, was around 10 years old the first time his father took him fishing in April to Great South Bay, the largest shallow saltwater bay in New York. It was so cold that he remembers scraping frost off the lines that tied the family’s 26-foot motorboat to the pier. Dr. Coblyn, clinical chief…
When Christopher Ritchlin, MD, MPH, isn’t teaching students, residents and fellows at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC), treating patients or conducting medical research in his lab, he’s monitoring the health of another sort of patient—honeybees. For the past four years. Dr. Ritchlin, professor and chief of allergy, immunology and rheumatology at URMC, has…
An interdisciplinary and collaborative environment is a critical factor for the advancement of basic science and clinical research in the academic environment, says William J. Koopman, MD, former director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s (UAB’s) Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology. And in 1977, when he was being recruited by Division Director J….