A: I enjoyed doing things outside of my office that also educated patients as to what was available with specialty care to treat the more than 100 different types of arthritis and rheumatism.
It helped me spread the word about treating patients with arthritis and other things. Volunteering for these organizations—if you want to take the time to do it—is another way of helping to treat patients.
ACR Paulding Phelps
Fredrica Smith, MD
Private practice rheumatologist, Los Alamos, N.M.
Background: Dr. Smith graduated from Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, N.C., in June 1971, and since then, she’s spent just 17 months of her career—her rheumatology fellowship at University of Virginia in Charlottesville—outside of New Mexico. She has been a two-time chief of staff at Los Alamos Medical Center and has served as a preceptor for medical students from the University of New Mexico (where she did research under rheumatologist and former ACR Presidential Gold Medal winner Ralph Williams, Jr., MD) and other medical schools. Her community involvement includes helping to build a year-round aquatic center and being a 37-year member of the Los Alamos Symphony Orchestra. Her retirement will be official by year end.
Q: This award is for community and patient service. Is that what drew you to rheumatology?
A: One of the pleasures of rheumatology is you get to know the patients with whom you’re working. You work with them for so many years on their problems that you really get to know them as people, which is always very nice, as opposed to a person you can’t remember. I have some patients I’ve taken care of for all 37 years I’ve been in practice. That’s a nice thing to be able to do. It’s also intellectually challenging because these people have very complicated problems … rheumatology is the best of the internal medicine world because of the complexity and the patient interactions that occur over so many years.
