My dear friends, we come to praise Caesar. As we march toward 2016, we ought to acknowledge the great Roman emperor’s role in creating a proper calendar. At the start of Caesar’s reign, the calendar year lasted 355 days, 10¼ days fewer than the time it took the earth to fully orbit the sun.1 Although…
On May 23, 2010, Cindy Abbott was standing on top of the world. She had spent the past 51 days climbing Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world, and had finally reached the summit. “I was very anxious to get off and get back down,” she says, adding that the summit is about the…
Two years ago, at the age of 102, rheumatologist Ephraim P. Engleman, MD, FACR, FACP, published a memoir, My Century, in which he detailed his personal and professional accomplishments, as well as his secrets to longevity. With his characteristic sense of humor, Dr. Engleman noted that the first secret to a long life is to…
In medicine, as in all other areas of human endeavor, we cannot really understand where we are if we don’t understand how we arrived here. American rheumatology traces its origins nine decades back to Europe, when the International Committee on Rheumatism was founded by Jan van Breeman in 1925 at a European meeting of medical…
San Francisco is known for the Gold Rush, so it’s a particularly fitting place to collect a gold nugget. And so at the 2015 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in the Golden Gate City in November, the ACR and the ARHP honored a group of distinguished individuals who have made significant contributions to rheumatology research, education and…
James K. Smith, MD, believes in thinking several moves ahead. Consider your opponent. Gauge your strategy. Be aggressive when you need to be. Those are key aspects of his philosophy in rheumatology—and chess. Initiation Dr. Smith’s love of chess started after he had started his family. “I first got involved in the game through my…
The Rheumatology Research Foundation has infused more than $130 million into rheumatology research, education and training since it was established in 1985. The Foundation’s efforts have been greatly enhanced by the support of Corporate Roundtable (CRT) members. The CRT is a dynamic partnership between the Foundation and members of the pharmaceutical industry committed to furthering…
As usual, your items in The Rheumatologist remain timely. In the case of attracting medical students into rheumatology, your piece is also timeless. For many years now, I have recommended to various officers of the ACR that we obtain a list of students and their home addresses when they are admitted to medical school. At…
I want to thank you for writing the article, “Attracting More Medical Students to Rheumatology” for The Rheumatologist (online, October 2015). I am a senior at Georgetown University now, and I have recently applied to medical school. I have considered pursuing a career in rheumatology, and your article has inspired me to stay on that…
After its December meeting, the ACR Government Affairs Committee has determined the federal and state issues the College will focus its advocacy efforts on in 2016. These issues include ensuring implementation of the Medicare Access & CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 protects rheumatologists, creating an arthritis research program at the Department of Defense and more…