REF Preceptorship Award Recipients

The ACR REF/Abbott Medical Student Research Preceptorship, part of the REF awards portfolio, is designed for students who are between the first and second year of medical school. The award introduces students to rheumatology by supporting a full-time, three-month research experience. Recipients also receive travel funds to attend the ACR/ARHP Annual Scientific Meeting. Funding for this award is made possible through the Abbott Endowment for Rheumatology Development. For more information, visit www.rheumatology.org/ref.

The ACR Research and Education Foundation turns 25

The ACR Workforce Study estimated that nearly half of practicing rheumatologists will retire within eight years, which means that by 2025, there will be a severe shortage of rheumatologists and rheumatology health professionals in the United States.

Help the REF lay foundations for our future

For Maribeth Morral, a third-year medical student at Penn State College of Medicine in State College, Pa., and ACR Research and Education Foundation (REF) Preceptorship winner, her first exposure to rheumatology was the product of a chance encounter. In the first year of medical school at Penn State, students are assigned to track a chronically ill patient throughout the year as a learning experience. Morral’s patient happened to be an 11-year-old girl diagnosed with juvenile RA.

A Look Back & A Look Ahead: ACR Research and Education Foundation Turns 25

The REF Preceptorship Experience

Rheumatology’s Architect

Better Physicians—One Student at a Time

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