“It is a distinct honor to be recognized by the ACR for my work as a clinician and educator in rheumatology,” says Dr. Jonas. “I have had the immense privilege of caring for patients over decades and being part of the training of a generation of young rheumatologists. I have grown and learned from each patient, student, trainee and colleague that I have had the good fortune to work with, and I am grateful for the trust they have placed in me.”
Dr. Jonas received her medical degree at the State University of New York, Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, and completed her residency in internal medicine at The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., where she also served as chief resident. Dr. Jonas completed her rheumatology fellowship at Emory University, Atlanta. During her training she was a visiting researcher at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Jonas joined the faculty at UNC in 1998, and in 2001 she was appointed rheumatology training program director, a role she served in until 2018, growing the program from two fellows to six. She was a founding faculty member of the Carolinas Fellows Collaborative (2003), an innovative collaborative including all the rheumatology programs in North and South Carolina and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. Dr. Jonas was honored as the ACR Distinguished Fellowship Program Director in 2015.
A clinician educator, Dr. Jonas has an active rheumatology practice, where she sees patients with a wide spectrum of rheumatic and musculoskeletal disorders, and has a focus on inflammatory arthritis. She has been described as a clinician’s clinician who is an astute diagnostician. She teaches rheumatology to medical students, residents and fellows, and is actively involved in curricular development to train both physicians and advanced practice providers in rheumatology. Dr. Jonas is well published in the area of medical education and she received the Rheumatology Research Foundation Clinician Scholar Educator (CSE) award, which funded the development of an innovative rheumatology curriculum for medical students at UNC.
Dr. Jonas has held numerous leadership roles in medical education, demonstrating her broad, interprofessional teaching abilities, including as a course director in the UNC School of Medicine, with the ACR in its virtual learning for rheumatology fellows (V-FIT) programs and as course director for the Training Rheum, a training program for nurse practitioners and physician assistants in rheumatology.
Dr. Jonas has served as a volunteer at the ACR in multiple roles including as chair of the Committee on Training & Workforce Solutions and as co-chair of the ACR In-Training Examination Taskforce. She is the incoming chair of the ACR Committee on Training & Workforce Solutions.
