Last month, many rheumatologists offered up their favorite quotes. Most of these were on medicine, medical skills, some pertained to rheumatology and others were axioms for life.

Methotrexate was first introduced in 1955 for leukemia and in 1986 became FDA approved for the treatment of adults with severe, active, rheumatoid arthritis or children with active polyarticular-course juvenile RA.

ACR 2015 RA treatment guidelines were published yesterday, nearly a year after they were preliminarily presented at the 2014 ACR meeting in Boston. After a year of review and revision these have been posted.

A 2013 study reported that people from Denmark were the happiest. Reasons were postulated, but it was suggested it was because their expectations were so low.

Clinical decision-making, occurring at the intersection of the ’art’ and the ’science’ of medicine, remains enigmatic and controversial.

ICD-10 starts tomorrow, October 1st. Your Coding memory will have to increase 5-fold or more as we go from 16,000 to 68,000 new ICD-10 codes. How this will affect each of us remains to be seen. There’s a lot to learn, and many wonder if this will be the next “Y2K”.

The range of categories and diagnostic possibilities is astronomical with the new ICD-10 and its 68,000 codes.

Members of two professional medical societies griped about what they view as the Obama administration's inept attempts to regulate electronic health records (EHRs) and shared their visions for the ideal online platform at a second "town hall" meeting here Tuesday.

Who knows or ponders the articulations (joints) more so than the rheumatologist or orthopedist? We know their anatomy, their contours, tender sites and how to examine them. Adults have over 200 bones and up to 360 joints. Imagine if you had to do a DAS360?

A slim, yoga bending, middle aged school teacher seeks a rheumatology consultation to determine the cause and cure for her left lateral heel pain for the past 6 months. No trauma, no crazy footwear and no systemic symptoms, uveitis, or peripheral/axial arthritis.

Hydroxychloroquine is one of many medications frequently used in rheumatology practice.

Twitter? Really?

There’s a certain comfort to work that is rote, mechanistic and almost automatic.

What are your rules on methotrexate and alcohol use? How about casual, social or occasional alcohol use? If one alcoholic beverage is ok, what about 2, 3 or six while taking MTX?

The disease activity score (DAS28) has been developed as a dynamic assessment tool and a therapeutic response measure for use in clinical trials and practice.

Barry Waters, MD*: I have a 21 yr old lupus nephritis patient on mycophenolate, hydroxychloroquine and prednisone 40 mg per day.

Researchers at Stanford University analyzed 2013 Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage claims for narcotic painkillers containing hydrocodone, oxycodone, codeine and other opioids.  (Citation source http://buff.ly/1JgR2Tr)

A study published in the BMJ Christmas issue shows only 13% of academic positions at US medical schools are held by women. Sadly, and strangely, even the uncommon subset, men with moustaches, outnumbered (20%) the women in academic leadership spots. 

Rheumatologists and physicians are commonly asked, "what can I do to avoid rheumatoid arthritis?"  This is usually a concern for family members of those affected by RA.

Obesity is a modest risk factor for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) onset. More importantly, obese patients have significanty lower treatment responses to DMARDs and biologics, making them harder to treat than your average RA patient.