by RNSAdmin | Nov 14, 2017 | Education, Rheumatoid Arthritis
Twelve years ago, I met R.T., a 35-year-old female patient who had previously been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Her rheumatoid factor was positive at 49. Her sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein were also elevated. Her joints were visibly swollen and...
by RNSAdmin | Nov 7, 2017 | Education
Several years ago, I was involved in an early trial of adalimumab in pediatric patients with juvenile inflammatory arthritis (JIA). One precocious 12-year-old girl enrolled in the trial, who I will call Lucy, was the only child of parents in their late 50s. The...
by RNSAdmin | Oct 31, 2017 | Education
Learning the science of rheumatology is, for me, an ongoing project. The immune cascade is amazing and yet daunting to comprehend. The exciting part is that science has not only found DNA markers to help make a diagnosis, but each year, more medications to put RA into...
by RNSAdmin | Oct 24, 2017 | Education
When I first started as a rheumatology nurse, I got my hands on anything I could to help me learn about things that would help me to better serve my patients. Books, journal articles, you name it and I devoured it. Some things were easier to learn than others, and the...
by RNSAdmin | Oct 17, 2017 | Education
Picture this: A 43-year-old nurse practitioner (that’s me) on the floor of her 8-year- old daughter’s Disaster Area bedroom, drawing different colored blobs with pointy things sticking out of them and rectangular-shaped objects floating towards them. A few triangles...
