ICYMI: Telemedicine Bloopers and Successes

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At my COVID home command center, I feel pretty prepared for everything. From here, I can run my practice, manage and home-school 3 children and keep the family afloat.  I have 2 computers: one for telemedicine/business meetings and one for e-learning lessons/school updates that teachers and school administrators email me throughout the day for my children.  As a no-nonsense, organized mom and doctor, I felt ready to handle any issues that would arise. 

Telemedicine Bloopers and Successes

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Pearls Part 2: Common Sense Rheumatology 

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We live in an era where you need evidence in order to believe, but life’s experiences should not be discounted even if we do not have the statistics to support them…yet. In Part 2 of my annual meeting Pearls Trilogy, I present ten tips and observations shared by Dr. Sterling West from his session, "Rheumatology Top Secrets & Pearls".

FEAR: A Perception of Fact In Spite of the Fiction

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How do you help your patients who are resistant to your medical recommendations when they are receiving biased information from friends, family, and the internet? I wanted to share with you two cases and my approach.

Pain: Objectifying a Subjective Symptom

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My typically pleasant 76 year old male was livid when I walked into the exam room. He was pacing back and forth with furrowed eyebrows. I gingerly inquired what was bothering him the most.

ACR 2017 Highlights: RA, SpA, PsA, OA, Lupus and More

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The quality of the meeting was on par with the host city, with extensive data presented on a range of topics, from social media to drug safety. The organization committee did a great job and I got the feeling that most people felt the congress was user friendly given the magnitude of the event. During this year’s meeting, I had the privilege of working with the RheumNow team, which gave me the opportunity to hone my social media skills and get my Twitter game on. After reviewing plenty of posters and going to numerous presentations, here are my top take home messages as classified by disease state.

Knee Replacement and the Physical Terrorist

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Experience is a great teacher. My experience with knee replacement surgery taught me the pivotal importance of the physical therapist in individual outcomes.

KOLs Predict: What Will the Next Year Bring?

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A new subspecialty may emerge. New drugs will be approved (but it will be difficult for patients to get coverage for them). And an American team will win the World Series. All these and more: here are predictions for 2017 and beyond from rheumatologists across the country and around the world.

A Winning Season*

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Winning is everything – in football and in medicine. Rheumatologists have achieved many successes but still struggle to win against a handful of rheumatic foes. This retrospective examines past wins and losses and helps us to look ahead to a new season.

How do you handle questions about sex?

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I had just finished going over the prognosis and treatment plan with my newly diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis patient. I asked if she had any questions for me. She did. 

Top 5 and Bottom 5 Joints

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If you’re going to spend 10-20% of your clinic hours examining and caring for 28 or 68 or 360 joints – it may be instructive to own up to those joints we excel at and take note of the ones we avoid, despise or struggle with. 

Rheumatology Pearls from Twitter - Really?

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To many of my colleagues (admitted Luddites) the mere mention of Twitter results in the “omi-god 360” eye roll with an accompanying snide comment.