Susan Bernstein is a freelance journalist based in Atlanta. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Florida in Gainesville, Fla. Susan has worked as a professional journalist, writer, book author and editor for 25 years. She served in full-time positions with both the Arthritis Foundation and the American College of Rheumatology. She began working as a freelance journalist in 2011. Susan is the author of numerous Web and print articles on a variety of medical topics and is the author of three patient health books published by the Arthritis Foundation.
Editor’s note: As states prepare for Hurricane Milton, at least 223 people have died and hundreds are still unaccounted for in the destruction wrought by Hurricane Helene on Sept. 26. North and South Carolina, as well as Tennessee, were hard hit, and the U.S. medical system is being tested. Headlines include: “Helene Nearly Turned a…
Hurricane Ida intensified in the last two weeks of August 2021, battering the Cayman Islands and Cuba before hitting the Louisiana coast as a Category 4 storm just before Labor Day weekend.1 At landfall, Ida blasted southern Louisiana with maximum sustained winds of 150 knots, then turned in a north-northwestern direction to hit the New…
Although more than 189,300,000 eligible Americans are fully vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 as of Oct. 18, 2021, vaccine hesitancy persists.1 The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), citing data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey collected between May 26 and June 7, 2021, reports that in some U.S. counties—particularly in the Southeast…
Labial salivary gland biopsy (i.e., lip biopsy) is a useful tool to help diagnose Sjögren’s syndrome in suspected patients, but most rheumatologists are not trained to perform the minimally invasive procedure. A new, 40-minute training video and slide presentation with step-by-step instructions may help them fill that critical skill gap. Two rheumatologists collaborated to create…
Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are the focus of a new ACR/ARP subcommittee of the Collaborative Initiatives (COIN) Special Committee. The 13-member group will explore strategies to increase diversity in the rheumatology workforce pipeline and reduce implicit bias in such organizational processes as speaker recruitment and abstract review. “There is a new awareness at the…
Recent research suggests patients with RA and a positive test for anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) may not have a different disease course than patients with RA who test negative for ANA. However, these patients may experience different treatment courses.
The group’s goals include workforce diversification and inclusive speaker recruitment.
Hesitancy about COVID-19 vaccination persists nationwide, although it varies among regions and sociodemographic groups.
Experts at ACR Convergence 2020 addressed how diet & the body’s microbiome affect chronic diseases.
In a controlled, large-cohort, longitudinal study from Canada, Atiquazzaman et al. found that use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) substantially contributes to increased cardiovascular disease risk among people with osteoarthritis (OA).1 This is the first study to evaluate the mediating role that NSAIDs play in the association between OA and cardiovascular disease (CVD), and the…