At the ARP Keynote lecture at ACR Convengence 2024, Sandra Mintz, RN, MS, discussed the importance of empathy & trust-building between doctors & their rheumatology patients.
Experts offered perspectives on how symptoms of rheumatic disease, such as fatigue, affect the physical, cognitive and emotional health of patients and offered solutions.
There’s a Word file—somewhere—on one of the many flash drives jumbled in a drawer in my home office. That file is named something like “Overcoming_Procrastination_Column.docx” and was last accessed in the year 2018. I know I wrote about 500 words, and then, one day, I said I would finish it later. But I never did….
June is always a bittersweet month, at least in academic medicine. We get to look forward to a new fresh set of faces coming into our training programs, but we also have to say goodbye to those once-fresh faces that have progressed through their medical education journeys. These transitions are never easy, neither for the…
Implicit bias can affect patient care at the physician level when they’re making treatment decisions and at the healthcare organization level when they’re choosing new hires. Here are insights into strategies rheumatologists can use to become aware of, and question, their implicit biases.
Editor’s note: Originally published on Oct. 12, 2023. Updated Feb. 28, 2024, to add fact sheets. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a leading cause of medical errors and poor care is a lack of communication between healthcare providers.1 As healthcare has evolved, the importance of holistic care has become more…
How can we ensure patients are receiving care that addresses all of the ways rheumatic disease affects their life? In this ACR Convergence 2023 session, experts discuss the value of a strong interprofessional care team.
“I circled 30 minutes … but it feels more like five hours getting ready for work Monday to Friday and only 15 minutes in a hot bath on weekends,” my patient relayed to me. Greg (name changed, obviously) is an ambitious young professional who has axial spondyloarthritis. He’s also a really funny guy with a…
Expressing empathy, engaging patients in conversations about their emotional health and having an overall understanding of grief can help rheumatology health professionals better care for their patients. During a session at ACR Convergence 2023, mental health professionals and patients highlighted how grief affects patients with rheumatic disease and how providers can respond.
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. I was at a mandatory “training session” on patient communication for all clinicians at my institution. There, I was being coached on how to properly talk to patients. In theory, this isn’t a bad thing—we all need more education on how to facilitate inclusive and equitable conversations with…