Focus Rheums| Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde? (video)

An official publication of the ACR and the ARP serving rheumatologists and rheumatology professionals

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Q&A with New ACR President Paula Marchetta

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Paula Marchetta, MD, MA, MBA, became a member of the ACR in 1989, during her rheumatology fellowship at Bellevue Hospital and the New York University (NYU) Medical Center. Just 10 years earlier, rheumatology had been an unlikely path. Dr. Marchetta—with a love of the arts—was pursuing Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English. But she found…

ARHP Lifetime Achievement Award Winner: Christina H. Opava, PhD, RPT

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CHICAGO—Christina H. Opava, PhD, RPT, is the recipient of the 2018 ARHP Lifetime Achievement Award, which was presented (along with the other ACR and ARHP awards) during the opening session of the 2018 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting on Oct. 20. “Receiving this award is an immense honor,” she tells The Rheumatologist. “My first thought was that…

Ethics Forum: When & How to Intervene with the Impaired Colleague

Jill Johnson, MD  |  

You are seeing a hospital consult late in the afternoon on a Saturday. The patient has suspected, new-onset lupus with inflammatory arthritis, renal failure with nephrotic range proteinuria and a malar rash. You plan to start the patient on high-dose IV steroids, and you decide to speak to the nephrologist on call first. When he…

Awards, Appointments & Announcements in the World of Rheumatology

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Canadian Pediatric Rheumatologist Invested into Order of Canada Peter Dent, MD, professor emeritus of pediatrics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, was invested into the Order of Canada in May. The Order of Canada is the country’s highest civilian honor. “Dr. Dent has had a substantial positive impact on healthcare, in Hamilton and far…

Trimethoprim-Sulfamethoxazole Prophylaxis Reduced Rituximab Infection Risk

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Severe infections occurred in 25% of patients with anti-neutrophil cytoplasm antibody (ANCA) associated vasculitis (AAV) who were treated with rituximab, according to results of an observational study conducted in the United Kingdom (U.K.) and Austria. Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP/SMX) prophylaxis, however, reduced the risk of severe infections, the investigators reported in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.1 Andreas…

8 Ways to Help Your Patients with Medication Costs

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A patient with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) comes to your office and needs a medication. You prescribe it, and the patient’s insurance plan covers it. The patient begins the medication and slowly but surely feels better. Prescribing drugs for a patient should be this simple but rarely is, thanks to the high cost of drugs and…

Big Data May Shift Reference Ranges for Some Lab Tests

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How will big data mined from huge sample sizes in research cohorts, electronic health records, personal health data (e.g., heart rates from Fitbits) and insurance claim data sets change the way physicians interpret something as simple as complete blood count (CBC) test results for individual patients? According to the authors of a paper in the…

Study Reveals Lupus Is a Leading Cause of Death in U.S. Women

Kimberly J. Retzlaff  |  

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a leading cause of death among young women, according to an August 2018 study in Arthritis & Rheumatology.1 To help determine where SLE ranks among causes of death, Eric Y. Yen, MD, and Ram Raj Singh, MD, conducted a population-based study using nationwide mortality counts for all female residents of…

Administrators & Payers Have Hijacked Our Medical Records

Timothy Harrington, MD  |  

I attended medical school in the 1960s, when Dr. Lawrence Weed reinvented the medical record to organize and leverage the physician’s patient evaluation for clarity and quality of care—what he dubbed “the problem-oriented medical record.”1,2 My internal medicine house officer training at Massachusetts General placed a high value on efficient, effective medical records and communication…