These are truly extraordinary times. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the rheumatology community, both providers and patients, in many ways, and our advocacy efforts are now more important than ever to ensure policymakers hear us and help address the issues facing our community. As with so many things during this pandemic, we are reimagining advocacy…
Singer Jimmy Dean reportedly once said, “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” The COVID-19 pandemic has required us as rheumatologists to adjust our sails multiple times. We have had to rethink many of the ways in which we interact with our worried…
ATLANTA—Managing teenage patients may present challenges for pediatric rheumatologists and rheumatology professionals not only because of their often complex, rare conditions, but because teenagers are, well, teenagers. Teens may experiment with sexual intercourse, alcohol use, tobacco or vaping e-cigarettes to fit in with their peers, even if these habits have serious health consequences, according to…
On behalf of the ACR, I wish you happiness, prosperity and, above all, good health in this new decade. Now that the holidays are behind us and 2020 has launched, the ACR’s dedicated volunteers and staff are working collaboratively to achieve many ambitious initiatives to ensure the College’s dynamic and bright future. A few weeks…
We all have a short list of famous individuals whose writings inspire us and guide us. At the start of my presidential year, I turned to my own short list for some words of wisdom from Peter Drucker, whom many consider to be the founder of modern management theory. Underpinning Drucker’s teachings is a strong…
In 2004, the British Medical Journal published an article titled, “Resisting Cookbook Medicine,” which looked askance at the “routine use of predetermined directives” in clinical practice because it reduced doctors to practicing so-called cookbook medicine and eroded the art of medicine.1 Fast forward 15 years, and we find our appetite for “predetermined directives”—what we now…
I was honored to be invited by Paula to write this column about my aspirations for the ACR’s future. As one might expect, I am also humbled by the prospect of trying to encapsulate the vision that has already been so elegantly provided by ACR leadership and its board of directors: “As the leading authority…
It happens all the time. We can see it coming—that quizzical look or the hesitant nod after someone asks what we do for a living. We are so accustomed to the next question that we often provide the answer before someone even has a chance to ask it: “What’s a rheumatologist?” The ACR has long…
In the first scene of the Broadway stage adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, young Scout contemplates two words she has heard in the courtroom: “All rise,” and wonders if they really are meant to elevate the minds of all those present for the proceedings. That instruction—“All rise”—serves as a leitmotif throughout the…
We have often heard it said that opportunity arises from challenges. Challenge, of course, is really just a polite way of saying problem—and for our patients, problems abound when it comes to obtaining timely and affordable access to the rheumatologic care they need. Access in this context has many meanings: There is access to life-changing…