Currently, Dr. Felson’s work is multipronged. He holds a part-time appointment at the University of Manchester in the U.K., directs the Clinical Epidemiology Research Training Unit at BU, and is now involved in studies of foot disorders in the elderly, and of back pain and its impact on the elderly. As the ongoing principal investigator in the Framingham Osteoarthritis Study, he also continues to publish on findings about hand OA in the general population.7 In his free time, he enjoys traveling and singing.
The Clinical Epidemiology Research Training Unit is engaged in a broad spectrum of research, ranging from studies of gout, OA, work disability prevention, outcome measures in rheumatoid arthritis, biomarker studies in vasculitis, and genome-wide association studies of pain and gout. “Dr. Felson has amassed an amazing group of people (including epidemiologists, biostatisticians, programmers, physicians, and other healthcare professionals) who grapple with the nitty-gritty of very advanced methodology here,” says Tuhina Neogi, MD, PhD. She began training in 2003 supported by an Arthritis Foundation grant. In addition to being a research fellow with the NIH-funded Clinical Research Training (CREST) program that supports formal research training through course work, she also benefitted from the unit’s infrastructure that provided the opportunity for a true apprenticeship: “the ability to immerse oneself in the nuts and bolts of research,” she says. Now, as an associate professor of medicine, she is challenged daily by the nuanced discussion and debate emblematic of the unit’s investigators.
The photograph of the Clinical Epidemiology Research and Training Unit, with a group of trainees surrounding a beaming Dr. Felson, attests to the vibrancy of the program he continues to nurture. Recalls Dr. Fraenkel, “I have been with David both when he has been on stage to receive awards celebrating his success as a researcher and when he is watching his fellows present at national meetings, and the smile on his face is always much larger when his trainees are on the stage.”
Gretchen Henkel writes the “Metrics in Rheumatology” series.
Timeline
1978 – Earns his MD from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
1981 – Completes internship and residency in internal medicine at Case Western University Hospitals
1984 – Completes clinical and research fellowship at Boston University School of Medicine
1984 – Earns MPH at Boston University School of Public Health
1984 – Becomes assistant professor of medicine and public health (epidemiology) at Boston University School of Medicine
