Gretchen Henkel is an award-winning health and medical journalist based in California. She reports on clinical and outcomes research and practice management issues, as well as patient-centered and culturally competent care for various specialties, including hospital medicine, rheumatology, oncology, otolaryngology and long-term care. As an editorial consultant for the SAMHSA-funded National Child Traumatic Stress Network, she develops content for toolkits on assessment and treatment of childhood abuse and trauma, and is the managing editor of the NCTSN quarterly newsletter, IMPACT.
The ARHP is pleased to announce the relaunch of its highly successful online Fundamentals of Rheumatology Course (FRC). This updated version is earning high marks from users and reviewers for ease of navigation, choice of presentation formats, depth of research and separate learning activities (i.e., modules) for the care of adult and pediatric patients. According…
Generating articles of incorporation, convening boards of directors, establishing nonprofit status: It’s no small feat to form a state rheumatology society, but with the right expertise, the results can be successful, according to the president of the Rheumatology Association of Minnesota and the Dakotas, Jody Hargrove, MD, who is in private practice with Arthritis &…
When former ACR President Joseph Flood, MD, tapped Deborah Dyett Desir, MD, to volunteer for an ACR committee, he might have assumed that her preference would be to serve on the Committee on Rheumatologic Care or its Insurance Subcommittee. After all, Dr. Desir is in private practice at the Arthritis and Osteoporosis Center PC in…
H.R. 807, Medicare Access to Rehabilitation Services Act of 2017, will be one of the key issues discussed when members of the ACR’s Government Affairs Committee (GAC) visit Capitol Hill Sept. 26 during the annual Advocates for Arthritis event. This bill—as well as its companion bill in the Senate, S. 253—is aimed at repealing the…
Like many other state rheumatology associations, the Ohio Association of Rheumatology (OAR) has recently been actively advocating for patient care at the state legislative level. The most recent example of OAR’s efforts included an Advocacy Day on May 4, when members met with state legislators to discuss topics of interest. It was the fourth such…
When it was created in 1982, the Division of Rheumatology and Immunology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center comprised one-and-a-half rheumatologists: its founder, Lynell W. Klassen, MD, MACR, and Gerald Moore, MD, who later received formal training at the NIH and now serves as senior associate dean for academic affairs. Thirty-five years later, the…
On May 25, with Gov. Greg Abbott’s signing of Senate Bill 680, Texas became the fourth state this year to increase protection for patients subject to insurers’ step therapy protocols. The State of Texas Association of Rheumatologists (STAR) joined with 35 other professional societies and patient advocacy organizations in urging passage of S.B. 680. The…
Editor’s note: This article will be the first in a series of articles highlighting the advocacy work done by state and local societies around the country. The South Carolina Rheumatism Society (SCRS) realizes multiple benefits from its association with the ACR, according to Jeffrey G. Lawson, MD, the society’s treasurer. One example of the support offered:…
From its beginnings as the Rheumatic Diseases Study Group (RDSG) in the early 1930s, NYU Langone Medical Center’s Division of Rheumatology has been built on a tradition of research and clinical care. Today’s division, with 24 full-time and 76 part-time faculty members, continues to push toward understanding the pathogenesis of rheumatic diseases and interventions to…
An interdisciplinary and collaborative environment is a critical factor for the advancement of basic science and clinical research in the academic environment, says William J. Koopman, MD, former director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s (UAB’s) Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology. And in 1977, when he was being recruited by Division Director J….