When she was in elementary school, Sandra Pagnussat, MD, began experiencing unrelenting pain and stiffness, first in her pinky and then in her other fingers. Her pediatrician diagnosed her with polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). In high school, Sandra decided to pursue a career in medicine and began taking advanced placement classes in biology and chemistry….
I read with pleasure the March 2017 Rheuminations (written by Simon M. Helfgott, MD), but wanted to make a small emendation. There is one other rheumatologist–Nobel Laureate besides Philip Hench. Baruch (Barry) Blumberg (1925–2011) was a bona fide rheumatologist who trained in the mid-1950s with the renowned Charles Ragan at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New…
Current ARHP President Afton L. Hassett, PsyD—a clinical psychologist and an associate research scientist in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Michigan—attended her first ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in 1999. Dr. Hassett submitted an abstract to the meeting describing her dissertation research exploring the role of pain and depression in rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. It…
Pathologists are legendary for blending their work product with the culinary arts. Through the years, their use of delectable foods as descriptors has created a clever way to indelibly link in the minds of clinicians the histopathologic observations of disease with an assortment of these tasty foods: There is the depiction of an apple green…
On many Saturday evenings, Kaleb Michaud, PhD, saves the world from pandemics, harvests barrels of coffee beans to sell at market or helps King Brandur recover the fabled Runic DragonStones. Dr. Michaud, an associate professor in the division of rheumatology and immunology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) in Omaha and also co-director of…
Alyssa B. Dufour, PhD, is a salsa dancing junkie. Besides taking weekly dance lessons, she salsa dances three times a week at local clubs or studios and practices routines around the house—while cooking dinner, getting dressed or watching TV. She can’t seem to get enough of the social dance that has boosted her confidence in…
Like many people, I am up early and in the gym most days. Although I don’t seem to get anywhere new on the stationary bicycle or the elliptical machine, I do get to keep up with the pundits on the early morning talk shows. In contrast to the television series I binge on later in…
As clinicians, we are familiar with pain, stiffness and soreness—subjective nouns that define our métier. These helpful words serve as signposts that direct us along the path to the proper diagnosis. Consider the young man with a stiff, sore back (a case of ankylosing spondylitis?) or the postpartum woman experiencing newly painful, stiff and sore…
The Phone Call A phone call in the middle of the night can rattle one’s nerves. The rush of adrenaline sets the heart pounding as our ears brace for what we are about to hear next. A distress call from an elderly parent or a child away at college? Is everyone safe? Or may this…
As part of the Rheumatology Research Foundation’s Visibility Initiative, the Rheum Life campaign was developed as a way to share a patient’s perspective of what life is like with a rheumatic disease. Rheum Life also provides insight into current Foundation-funded research and the impact it will have on the lives of these patients. Exposure to…