The waiting time for new patients to obtain an appointment to see us can be as long as six to 12 months. Many of our patients are desperately ill, not necessarily in the sense of emergent needs, but from neglect by our systems and society, poverty, lack of education, and cultural ignorance. This is quite a change for me, coming most immediately from Livingston–Short Hills, New Jersey, home to one of the world’s most dense populations of millionaires. No fibromyalgia, regional musculoskeletal syndromes, or even osteoarthritis in the LAC clinics. No “boutique” care, “concierge” care, or “dollars-up-front” care for these folks coming to LAC, known as “The County.” We are their refuge, their salvation, their hope; there is no alternative. Whatever we provide separates them from total disregard. Whatever we do is more than they had. And they are profoundly grateful. Their courage, despite incredible adversity, is remarkable. They are heroes.
Heroic Physicians
It takes special people to care for such patients. Rheumatology at LAC + USC has been blessed with two such heroes of another kind. They have provided decades of stability, leadership, role-modeling, and mythic care. They have contrasting personalities and styles but shared a passion for providing the best possible care to this desperate population.
Frank Quismorio, MD, came here in 1967, after a fellowship with the legendary Joe Hollander at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Frank was attracted to USC by the opportunity to study lupus with the renowned Ed Dubois, and was one of the founders of the LAC lupus clinic. Rheumatology at USC, and at LAC + USC, is unique because of Frank’s presence for the last 45 years. He has provided direction, consistency, and continuity to the rheumatology clinics. His quiet, self-effacing dedication, his exceptional clinical acumen, and his commitment to his patients have been a model of excellence for others at the medical center.
His encyclopedic knowledge of rheumatology has been the stuff of storied amazement. He displays a special ability to connect with patients, educate them, and help them understand their disease. He now has seen three generations of patients in several families. Despite the unfortunately transient nature of LAC patients, more patients return to us than to other clinics because of Frank’s influence. He greets most of the lupus patients and many of the others by name. Patients explicitly ask for him. He often encounters patients around town. He still has notes and card files on all his patients. He still calls them when necessary. He recalls going to patients’ homes when other means of communication failed. He does this because he cares, deeply. These patients, he says, “are at the bottom … we are the end of the line … they can’t be seen elsewhere … we are their safety net … they need our help.” Frank is deservedly proud of the many fellows he’s mentored over the years. It’s no surprise that his daughter, Anne, now sees patients with him in clinics; she’s a rheumatology fellow.
As we left the room, frustrated at our inability to do more…she smiled from ear to ear and thanked us profusely.
Another hero (more correctly, heroine, but her modesty would have her demur entirely) is Rodanthi Kitridou, MD. She came as directress of clinical rheumatology in 1975 (she retired in 2005), having previously trained with Dan McCarty, another of the seminal leaders in rheumatology, at Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia, and with Joe Hollander at the University of Pennsylvania, while Frank, too, was a fellow there; she had directed rheumatology at Hahnemann (now Drexel) for five and one-half years.
