It’s A Small World after All

In 2010, Stanley Cohen, MD, immediate past president of the ACR, attended the PANLAR biennial meeting held in Santiago, Chile. Dr. Cohen spoke of the sizeable attendance at the meeting, along with quality of the presentations. In 2011, I represented the ACR in honoring a fellow member of PANLAR at the opening ceremony celebrating the 50th year of the Mexican College of Rheumatology, the 39th annual meeting of that College, and the Second Bi-National Mexico Canada Congress, held in Cancun. As part of the pre-Congress program, I had an opportunity to lecture on rheumatology and pain therapy and, subsequently, to present certificates to a distinguished group of Hispanic ACR Masters who were lecturing at the Congress. The audience for this anniversary meeting was large and enthusiastic for the opportunity to learn the most current advances in rheumatic disease care. Current PANLAR President, Antonio Carlos Ximenes, MD, from Brazil, sums up the importance of collaboration within the membership of PANLAR by quoting Anibal Ruiz Moreno, MD: “It is necessary to make one out of the Americas if we want to achieve anything in rheumatology.”

APLAR

Rohini Handa, MD, current president of the Asian Pacific League Against Rheumatism (APLAR), shared his thoughts on the importance of a worldwide rheumatology collaboration. “Collaboration brings together not only physicians but also patients on a common platform so that we can exchange, update, innovate, and learn from one another,” he says. “This is especially true for a challenging specialty like rheumatology.” APLAR strives to bring together rheumatology in the Asia Pacific region to fight as one against arthritis. An initiative for APLAR that stresses the need to improve the diagnosis and treatment of RA through education is “Every Day Counts.”⁶ Housed on APLAR’s website, the initiative offers a RA patient fact sheet to assist in educating APLAR’s rheumatology patients. In addition, the ACR has been assisting APLAR in preparation of rheumatology review courses as part of their scientific meetings.

AFLAR

The African League Against Rheumatism (AFLAR) brings together associations of rheumatologists across the African continent with the aim of significantly improving the outcome of musculoskeletal disorders among its diverse populations. In his presidential address, Omondi Oyoo, MD, current president of AFLAR, spoke with his membership on how to improve the outcome of musculoskeletal disorders with the scarce resources available in Africa. He stressed the importance of being collectively engaged in operational research and device integrated care of chronic diseases in a manner that will maximize outcomes with the minimum possible expenditure of resources. He noted that, “since the world is now a global village, we also need to collaborate fruitfully with other well-endowed leagues so that we can gain from their resources and experiences.”