“So, I would say that my first experience really with rheumatology was during my residency. I was doing internal medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, and I was very lucky that I had a rheumatology rotation very early in my intern year, so within the first couple of weeks. But I think what really ultimately made me decide to become a rheumatologist is what I saw in the outpatient clinic between the rheumatologist and the patients. And that was the development of the relationships that they have with their patients over years, essentially because they have chronic diseases. And there’s this bond and trust that develops between the rheumatologist and their patients. And I absolutely loved that and wanted to pursue that with my own practice. So, that’s what made me decide to pursue fellowship and then I am now here!”

“I really like to focus on a collaborative relationship between myself and my patient. I want to make sure that they feel that they’re being heard, that I’m a good listener, that I’m addressing their concerns and their questions, and that we’re working together in a productive manner to try to figure out what’s going on and work towards a treatment plan. I want to be an advocate for them in their health and I want them to feel that way as well.”

“I would say that some of the more common rheumatologic conditions would be diseases like inflammatory arthritis. So, if you think of rheumatoid arthritis or psoriatic arthritis, arthritis like gout, lupus or Sjogren’s disease. There are some more rare conditions, things like Scleroderma, which I have a special interest in myself, Behcet’s disease or auto inflammatory syndromes. There’s a lot of different possibilities. But as we mentioned before, ultimately they’re all related to the to the musculoskeletal system and either chronic autoimmune processes or connective tissue diseases.”

“It can be really tricky for a patient to know when they need to go, but I think that they’re having symptoms that are concerning for any of the musculoskeletal components like we talked about bones, joints or muscles. So, things like muscle pain or muscle weakness, joint pain, unexplained fevers, abnormal labs. Usually these are being picked up by other doctors that they’re seeing, their primary care doctor or other specialists, and we’re getting referrals from them. Or if a patient is having those symptoms, they can self-refer. And I think that it’s absolutely appropriate to be evaluated and to figure out what’s going on.”

“For our initial visit, there’s going to be a lot of talking. So, I’m going to be asking a lot of questions about the symptoms that the patient has been having, the timeline, if there’s any associated chronic conditions, previous workup or previous treatments, any environmental or occupational exposures, family history. So, lots of questions. And then we’re going to proceed with a thorough physical exam to fully evaluate the patient and then determine if we need to do any labs or other imaging. So, X-rays, ultrasound, sometimes we have to do more advanced imaging like MRIs and sometimes we also need to refer to some of our colleagues and other specialties to address whatever symptom might be being investigated.”