Today in clinic, I saw a patient with longstanding seropositive, erosive rheumatoid arthritis who had been treated with etanercept for over 10 years. She had undergone valve replacement years ago for regurgitation.
Busy days, overbooked patients and EMR overloads will certainly derail your day, especially if you don’t have a system to optimize efficiency. However, in your harried efforts you may overlook several simple, smart, if not crucial, tasks while seeing your next patient.
A recent analysis of 3 groups of treatment-naïve, early rheumatoid arthritis (ERA) patients looked at the factors that influenced the choice of therapy.
Nearly half of all available vacation days go unused and over 40% of Americans failed to use any vacation days in 2015. Common sense says that taking more time off (not less) is likely to lead to increased work productivity. Your next vacation is essential to building a better you. Here are some tips to insure you get the most from your time off.
Just last week, I went to a doctor’s retirement party. It was festive, with honors and ribbing for the lucky one, but there was an asterisk to his milestone. Retirement was not anticipated or planned for. What is your retirement plan?
Patients are labeled as having “difficult RA" when: 1) we are frustrated, 2) it's too late, 3) we've run out of options or 4) the relationship is failing. We see them, but don’t quite know what to do with them.
“It’s unbelievable how much you don’t know about the game you’ve been playing all your life.” - Mickey Mantle
This is going to be my third visit with this patient and I’m not looking forward to it.
In the first two, I discovered how sick she was and how, despite my handouts, efforts, insights and words, my educated medical expertise was totally wasted.
In the years to come, the availability of numerous new IL-6 inhibitors it will either complicate treatment decisions, alter existing treatment paradigms, or result in an all-out war against TNF inhibitor dominance. Data, differences and time will tell.
