Bharat Kumar, MD, MME, FACP, FAAAAI, RhMSUS, is a clinical assistant professor of internal medicine in the Division of Immunology, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City. Before assuming the role of physician editor, he was a member of the ACR Board of Directors (beginning in 2020). After attending college at the University of Pennsylvania, he went to Saba University School of Medicine and completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Kentucky. He arrived in Iowa in 2014 and completed fellowships in both rheumatology and allergy/immunology in 2017, as well as a master’s degree in medical education and certification in musculoskeletal ultrasonography. His clinical interests include the intersection of autoimmunity and immunodeficiency, musculoskeletal ultrasonography, and ocular inflammatory diseases. As the associate program director for the rheumatology fellowship training program, he is also driven by a desire to improve the quality of medical education as well as the value of clinical work for both patients and practitioners. Outside the clinic, Dr. Kumar has a keen interest in medical journalism, quality improvement and humanism, and is the Arnold P. Gold Foundation’s Humanism-in-Research Associate Editor.
“I’m actually from Iowa. Where do you hail from?” I replied, in the friendliest tone I could muster. Many readers may already know the context, but I’ll rewind a few moments to clear up any ambiguity. I was in clinic and talking with a kind lady with joint pain. While I was in the middle…
In this episode, Dr. Kumar discusses concepts of time, flow and what they mean for the patient experience and the rheumatologist.
“I circled 30 minutes … but it feels more like five hours getting ready for work Monday to Friday and only 15 minutes in a hot bath on weekends,” my patient relayed to me. Greg (name changed, obviously) is an ambitious young professional who has axial spondyloarthritis. He’s also a really funny guy with a…
As they usually are, the pediatrics are absolutely correct: A child is not just a little adult. The same can be said for the eldest among us: Senior citizens are more than just old adults; they have their own biopsychosocial considerations that we, as rheumatologists, must tend to. Among all the conditions that we find…
In this episode, Dr. Bharat Kumar, physician editor of The Rheumatologist, goes on the record with his predictions for how rheumatology will change in the next 10 years.
In this episode, Dr. Bharat Kumar, physician editor of The Rheumatologist, discusses the definition of empathy and its role in rheumatology.
Is it 2024 already? It seems like yesterday that I stuffed all my earthly belongings into my black Volkswagen Jetta and headed from Lexington, Ky., to Iowa City, Iowa, to start my rheumatology fellowship.1 That was 10 years ago. Now, in 2024, as I go online—particularly on social media—and see the various happy, smiling faces…
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. I was at a mandatory “training session” on patient communication for all clinicians at my institution. There, I was being coached on how to properly talk to patients. In theory, this isn’t a bad thing—we all need more education on how to facilitate inclusive and equitable conversations with…
In this episode, Dr. Kumar and guest Lindsay Moy, DO, a rheumatology fellow at the University of Iowa, discuss the intersection of immunology and rheumatology. Answer their question on X @BharatKumarMD.
I was cleaning out an old storage closet in my parents’ house in Florida when I stumbled across some notes I took in medical school. As I leafed through pages and pages of notes filled with doodles and reminders, I found a statement that gave me pause: “Immunology—what is it good for?!” To be honest,…