ACR on Air

We welcome Dr. Christina Downey back onto our show, this time LIVE from Convergence 2023! You may remember Dr. Downey from Episode 46: Empathy and Wellness , but today she comes to us in another capacity: in her continuing role as Chair of the ACR's Government Affairs Committee! Listen in as she discusses what our collective voice in Washington has done for our patients in 2023, what are the current issues rheumatology faces "on The Hill" and lastly, what you can do to be heard! Learn more about the ACR's efforts in advocacy at: rheumatology.org/about-acr-advocacy and get involved at: rheumatology.org/get-involved

The weekend of Convergence 2023 continues! Dr. Sindhu Johnson presented the new 2023 ACR Interstitial Lung Disease Guidelines (which can be found here ) and joins us today as its first author. Learn all about the recommendations, monitoring, how to approach treatment and when to change it as well as what gaps were noticed that inspired the new guidelines and the intent of the guidelines going forward. Enjoy, and we'll see you tomorrow for another great episode at Convergence!

Welcome to "ACR Convergence on Air" (ACoA)! Our daily coverage of ACR Convergence 2023! First up: what is thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA) and what is its significance for rheumatology? How does TMA present in clinic and what are the challenges in diagnosing it? Chief of the Division of Hematology and Medical Director of the Clinical Coagulation and the Platelet Antibody Laboratories at Duke University, Dr. Thomas Ortel, joins us on the show to explain this and more from his presentation here at Convergence 2023

ACR Convergence 2023 begins this Saturday! Dr. Hausmann gets on the mic for this short preview to unveil all of the exciting new things you'll hear, all week long, on our podcast! Be sure to wake up with Jon this Saturday morning, and every morning, during this year's Convergence!

Your patients are seeing you regularly, and things are going well. What else could they possibly need? In this week's episode, we discussed the support a patient organization can contribute between visits to your office and the type of support they provide patients, such as navigating the pitfalls of insurance coverage, managing the complexities of school, work, family, relationships with a chronic rheumatic disease, group support and much, much more. Our guest is Monique Gore-Massy, a distinguished and awarded global lupus advocate, diversity equity & inclusion champion, patient experience researcher, patient opinion leader consultant, motivational speaker, writer, strategist and, a patient with lupus. Her inspiring story and all the ways you can leverage these organizations for your patients are coming up in this next episode of "ACR on Air".

ACR Convergence 2023 is very nearly here, and with it only being a few weeks away, it's also time for our annual preview episode! What's new this year? What returning favorites are coming back? What can we expect from the San Diego Convention Center? Jon talks to our AMPC Chair, Dr. Sharon Kolasinski once more to tease this year's meeting, which in many ways builds on your feedback from last year as well. While listening, why not explore our Full Schedule or even Register Today! Enjoy the show and we'll see you in November!

Most may find the topic of advocacy to be uninteresting or too big to tackle with such busy schedules. However, our guests this week, Dr. Belinda Birnbaum, MD and Lennie Shewmaker McDaniel, JD, truly breathe life into this matter while explaining the role the American College of Rheumatology has on Capitol Hill and how you (yes YOU) can play an important and rewarding role. We discuss what RheumPAC is, how the ACR identifies key issues affecting our patients, highlight past successes of the ACR's advocacy group, plus cover important issues currently being presented to Congress such as "Transparency within Pharmacy Benefit Managers" and "Challenges of Step Therapy".

Congratulations, you've completed your rheumatology fellowship! Armed with the knowledge, skills and passion for treating complex rheumatic disease you're set to go off into the world and help those who need your set of skills most. So... How do you do that? Our next guest, Dr. Sunil Abraham joins us to unpack and demystify this next challenge in your career – from his experience. We discuss the various ways of practicing rheumatology, from academic to clinical, as well as the organizational models of hospital-based groups, community practices, and private practices and the financial risks and benefits of partnership!

No matter what stage of your career you're in, the Rheumatology Research Foundation can help and support your research endeavors. This week, we discuss many of the grants The Foundation offers, not just to medical students and early career investigators, but also to medical educators, community rheumatologists and fellowship programs. We've invited Dr. Ted Mikuls, MD, MSPH, the chair of the Scientific Advisory Council on the Board of Directors for the Rheumatology Research Foundation and Eryn Marchiolo, the Vice President of Mission at the Rheumatology Research Foundation to discuss what The Foundation is, how it goes about executing its mission for rheumatology research, what scientific topics it's most interested in, plus how to apply for grants, their grant selection process and how you can get involved.

Our eyes: reflections of the soul, can say more than lips without need of translation and give us a glimpse into stories only a journey can record. Our next guest knows this all too well as he's made a career of looking at rheumatic disease through a different lens. Quite literally. Join us this week for an illuminating discussion with Dr. James T. Rosenbaum, MD, rheumatologist and author of over 650 peer-reviewed manuscripts. Dr. Rosenbaum is credited as being both one of the world's most impactful uveitis scientists for the years 2013 to 2023 and the only practicing rheumatologist to have headed a department of ophthalmology. Dr. Rosenbaum helps us put uveitis into focus this week as we discuss what it is, how he treats it, how to determine if those with it have other rheumatic conditions, and which patients with rheumatic disease should seek additional treatment with an ophthalmologist.