“What captured me,” he says, “is that you get the privilege of being a specialist while maintaining the best parts of being a primary care physician; there is no question that my favorite part of the job is the proverbial continuity of care. I am eight years out from leaving my fellowship, and I’ve grown close to people I initially saw in those first few months of starting practice.
“I’m eternally grateful to all of the folks who were part of the program in training me. I felt well qualified and very confident coming out of fellowship—although, like medicine in general, rheumatology will continue to teach a dose of humility when necessary.”
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Gretchen Henkel is a medical journalist based in California.
References
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- O’Dell JR, Mikuls TR, Taylor TH, et al. Therapies for active rheumatoid arthritis after methotrexate failure. N Engl J Med. 2013 Jul 15;369(4):307–318.
- England BR, Sayles H1, Michaud K, et al. Cause-specific mortality in male US veterans with rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2016 Jan;68(1):36–45.
- Sokolove J, Johnson DS, Lahey LJ, et al. Rheumatoid factor as a potentiator of anti-citrullinated protein antibody mediated inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2014 Apr 1;66(4):813–821.