We all know that there is a lot of heterogeneity in medicine. That’s true in every specialty, from cardiology to gastroenterology and yes, to rheumatology too. The patient we see with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) in room A will often be very different from the patient...
Men and women. Kings and queens. Ladies and gentlemen. Since the beginning of humankind, society has divided us based on gender, teaching us how to act and what to say. X chromosomes line up over here, Y chromosomes over there. But what about autoimmune diseases and...
A great deal of the human experience revolves around the way in which we identify ourselves and those around us. For example, I’m a woman, mother, wife, and friend. These words not only tell us about our place in the world, but they illustrate how and why we matter to...
Stephanie both loved and hated being an only child. She loved the attention from her parents and never being told “No” when she asked for things. But she also was very lonely at times. She wished she had a permanent friend that she could call to talk about issues in...
I was raised in the traditional Western system of medicine. If anyone in our family became ill, a doctor would prescribe us medication, which we would take until we became better. This routine was normal, and it seemed to work every time. Prescription drugs or...
Dennis loved his Diet Coke®. He couldn’t make it to his appointment without lugging along two 32-ounce Diet Cokes from a local fast-food restaurant. He would finish the first one and start on the second by the time his visit to our office was over. Until a few months...
The world loves sports analogies. It’s pretty easy to understand why. You step on the field/court/rink and, a certain amount of time later, you either win or lose (or, in some sports, tie/draw). It’s clean and precise—there are no grey areas. Perhaps because I am such...
Those of us who have been in clinical practice for a while all have those individual patients we remember who represent the worst of the worst in a given disease state. It’s that patient with rheumatoid arthritis who has such severe hand deformity that they can no...
Treating rheumatology patients can be tough. I can’t tell you how many times I have told patients that a lot of what we do to get their disease under control is “trial and error,” which is never what they want to hear. They want us to be mechanics, to get under the...
Of all the disparities in the healthcare system our patients face, there is one that does not discriminate. It has nothing to do with finances, access to care, or transportation. I see it day in and day out with my infusion patients, and its onset can rarely be...