It’s a scenario that occurs all too often. After you tell someone you’re a rheumatologist, you receive that look—the blank stare, as if you’ve spoken to them in a foreign language. Six years ago, this scenario sparked a conversation among the ACR’s leaders about the importance of promoting our profession to the public, including key…
Rheumatologists practicing in rural and urban areas face different challenges. Robert Jackson, DO, discusses how technology, healthcare reform and hospital closures affect rheumatology practice in rural areas and its future…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Too many women who aren’t at risk for osteoporosis are being screened for the disease, and too many women who don’t need osteoporosis treatment are getting it, new research suggests. “In our health system the overtreatment of osteoporosis was common, and this was partly due to the fact that a lot of…
The Lupus Initiative (TLI) of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) continues its work to reduce the health disparities for people with lupus through multiple, national-level, grant-funded projects, targeting primary care physicians with lupus education to increase appropriate rheumatology referrals and—when necessary, appropriate and effective—distance-managed care. Since 2009, the ACR has received funding through the…
Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most common reasons for physician appointments. However, treatment results remain suboptimal, resulting in high rates of chronic pain, narcotic usage, surgery, depression and disability—all at great cost to individuals and the nation. One reason for this is the current practice of grouping all low back pain patients…
Recognizing the need to provide guidance on the current disparate management of polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR), the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), in collaboration with the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR), recently published the first international set of recommendations for the screening, treatment and management of PMR.1,2 Specifically, the recommendations offer guidance on the use of…
San Francisco is known for the Gold Rush, so it’s a particularly fitting place to collect a gold nugget. And so at the 2015 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in the Golden Gate City in November, the ACR and the ARHP honored a group of distinguished individuals who have made significant contributions to rheumatology research, education and…
When deciding where to locate a rheumatology practice, you need to do your homework. There are many factors to ponder, including accessibility, population demographics, competition, need, costs and whether a building meets your needs. First and foremost, it’s important that patients can easily get to and find your practice. Randy Eigen, first vice president, CBRE…
Despite a generation of advances in molecular biology, a huge gap exists between the Sjögren’s syndrome (SS) patient’s description of their symptoms and the objective findings. Current issues include: Many SS patients are misclassified as either rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), even within rheumatology clinics. Frequently, the sickest SS patients with extraglandular…
I am a few weeks post-retirement. Having written thank you notes and completed urgent home projects, I swing in a hammock at our currently fire-threatened cabin north of Winthrop, Wash., and reflect. I feel like a young boy while freely flipping pages of a hand-scribed picture book, The Principles of Uncertainty, by Maira Kalman. She…