Everyone gets their education about drug-related infection risk from television ads. Rheumatologists should know what the real risks are and educate their patients that they have a higher than normal rate of nonserious infections. But the infection risk is way more related to inflammation than any specific drug risk.
Many years ago, rheumatologists would assemble with lunar regularity to discuss cases, journal articles or listen to a great visiting speaker or leader in rheumatology. While many of these meetings occurred at a local eatery, they were more about the meeting than the eating.
Good News! Your research submission has been accepted for presentation at a national congress (i.e., ACR or EULAR). This is often a first step in the lifetime of a project – Abstract, Presentation, Full Write-up and Publication. Instead of being enthralled or overwhelmed with the notion of doing your first abstract, review my approach to creating, presenting and reviewing abstracts for a major medical meeting.
Leadership positions in medicine are disproportionately filled by men. Although the enrollment of medical schools are equal male: female or even some have more women, 40% of American medical institutions lack programs for recruiting women, or for retention and promotion of female faculty.
This may also be true in rheumatology, which is now attracting more women than men as trainees. I recently wrote an article in the Lancet about mentoring women in medicine and suggested ideas for improving the gender gap in leadership.
Just because it’s busted, it doesn’t mean you have to fix it. At some point, it’s important to know when to leave “good-enough” alone. Such is the story of the "busted valise" and what to do about it.
Cush and Dao are at it again. This time it's whether men or women are better patients. Cush says men are better patients; Dao says Er, not so fast bub! This is their light-hearted, gender biased debate on the best patients: Men vs. Women.
A gal with rheumatoid arthritis moved to my town and has transferred her care to me. Despite having RA for 3 years and swollen joints at the last three visits, she has taken surprisingly few effective drugs thus far.
On this visit I declared my concerns for her future health, especially if we didn’t make significant changes in therapy. So I recommended she start a new drug. She asked several good questions, then stated she wanted to go home and think about this further and she would get back to me with her decision.
But wait, that’s what she said at her last visit 2 months ago!
You see them from the corner of your eye, standing with a kyphosis in the waiting room. They are filling out their paperwork, standing up because sitting is just not pleasant. You are the rheumatologist with an interest in ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and spondyloarthritis, so more likely than not, the patient with the bent spine is going to be your next new patient. In the back of your mind you are hoping that they are not so far along so that the therapy you may prescribe can make a difference in their life.
Sasha D just doesn’t like me. I’ve seen her four times in the clinic, and each visit was a tense battle of misunderstandings, with both of us leaving dissatisfied or worse. The failing wasn’t in the diagnosis, but rather the malalignment of our goals and inability to listen. Despite my efforts, my words, the diagnoses and treatment suggestions haven’t been well received.
Recently, I was invited to apply for an open seat on the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), the large organization that certifies physicians in the United States. Part of the process is to write a personal statement on my views of the ABIM mission and what I would like to accomplish.