Pennsylvania Rheumatology Society 2021 Annual Scientific Meeting
PRS Members and Friends,
So much has happened in the last year and a half of this ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic. PRS held our 8th Annual Scientific Meeting at the Hershey Lodge, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, from September 18-19, 2021. Ultimately, the safety of our attendees was of the utmost concern, which is why we are pleased to offer the meeting as enduring materials.
The meeting was a great success with informational sessions and topics. With such great content, we wanted to share it with those of you who were unable to attend.
Here you will find inspiring speakers and cutting-edge information that will provide you with a continuing education opportunity. You can attend these sessions without leaving your office or the comfort of your home!
We are excited to share this amazing experience with you! Happy viewing!
So much has happened in the last year and a half of this ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic. PRS held our 8th Annual Scientific Meeting at the Hershey Lodge, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, from September 18-19, 2021. Ultimately, the safety of our attendees was of the utmost concern, which is why we are pleased to offer the meeting as enduring materials.
The meeting was a great success with informational sessions and topics. With such great content, we wanted to share it with those of you who were unable to attend.
Here you will find inspiring speakers and cutting-edge information that will provide you with a continuing education opportunity. You can attend these sessions without leaving your office or the comfort of your home!
We are excited to share this amazing experience with you! Happy viewing!
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The Lyme Disease Epidemic
Allen Steere, MD Dr. Steere’s research career has been centered on the elucidation of Lyme disease. Forty-three years ago, he led the team that evaluated a cluster of children in Lyme, CT, which led to the discovery of Lyme disease. He has subsequently studied the clinical manifestations, epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of this complex infection. During the 1990s, he was principal investigator of the SmithKline Beecham Lyme disease vaccine trial, which led to licensing of the first vaccine for Lyme disease. He currently serves as Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and is the Director of Translational Research in Rheumatology at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Program Outcomes: Attendees will become familiar with the joint guidelines of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American College of Rheumatology, and the American Academy of Rheumatology regarding the diagnosis of treatment of Lyme Disease. Learners will have a better understanding of the pathophysiology of Lyme Arthritis and the implications of this knowledge for other rheumatic diseases, including RA. |
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What the Rheumatologist Needs to Know About Cannabinoid Effects in the Management of Rheumatic Diseases
Mary-Ann Fitzcharles, MD, ChB Mary-Ann Fitzcharles is a clinician, teacher and clinical researcher at McGill University, Montreal, Canada since 1982. Medical school was at University Cape Town, South Africa, rheumatology training was at the London Hospital, England. Career interest has focused on rheumatic disease pain, and she has served on national/international committees in this context. She is a founder member of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada specialty committee for Pain Medicine, is an immediate past chair of the Canadian Rheumatology Association (CRA) Therapeutics committee and has led the 2012 Canadian fibromyalgia guideline group and the CRA position statement on medical cannabis. Recent publications and national/international presentations have addressed the concept of pain associated with rheumatic diseases and the use of opioids and cannabinoids in rheumatology patients.
Program Outcomes: Attendees will be able to have an informed discussion with patients about the evidence for cannabinoid effects. Learners will be cognizant of new evidence for effects or harms of medical cannabis. Learners will be able to follow a patient who wishes to try medial cannabis by applying the best principals of medical care. |
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COVID Vaccination in Rheumatic Disease Patients
Jeffery Curtis, MD, MS, MPH Dr. Curtis is a rheumatologist and epidemiologist focused on the efficacy, comparative effectiveness, and safety of the medications used to treat rheumatoid and psoriatic arthritis (RA). This focus includes evaluating novel health information technology to enable the systematic collection and integration of Patient Reported Outcomes (PRO), biosensor, and traditional data sources (e.g. registry, claims, electronic health records) to study outcomes among people with chronic illness. He is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Co-Director of the UAB Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics Research (PEER) Unit, which uses multiple large data sources to study comparative effectiveness questions for chronic diseases. These data sources include national administrative data from Medicare and commercial health plans, electronic health record data, and large registries. He also is the Co-PI of the PCORI-funded Patient Powered Research Network “Arthritis-Power” registry, focused on RA, psoriasis, and psoriatic arthritis using a digital health “App” platform created under his oversight at UAB, and aboard certified in Clinical Informatics and oversees the UAB Clinical Data Integration Committee, that links mobile data, EHR data, administrative claims, and other data sources together for research use cases.
Dr. Curtis has led the multi-center NIH-funded large pragmatic randomized controlled trial “VERVE”, studying the safety and effectiveness of the live herpes zoster vaccine in patients receiving biologic agents. This trial uses electronic consent and tablet devices with data linkage to study the short term immunologic response and safety as well as long term effectiveness in linked data. I am a member of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Herpes Zoster workgroup. In 2015, he was appointed as a member to the FDA Arthritis Advisory Committee and in 2016, the ASCI. Dr. Curtis routinely presents his research to an international audience by attending the annual International Conference on Pharmacoepidemiology & Therapeutic Risk Management (ICPE): Prague (2018) and Montreal (2016), and the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology (EULAR): London (2016). Program Outcomes: Learner will better RA patient outcome and survival by improving knowledge based on etiopathology, biomarkers, and treatment approach between seropositive and seronegative RA. |
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Making Sense of Cytokines in the Clinic
Edward Behrens, MD Dr. Edward Behrens received his undergraduate training at The Johns Hopkins University where he majored in biology. He attended medical school at The University of Pennsylvania where he received the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Medical Student Research Fellowship to train in the laboratory of Dr. Philip Cohen. After medical school, Ed completed a Pediatrics Residency and Pediatric Rheumatology Fellowship at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He performed two post-doctoral fellowships in the laboratories of Stefania Gallucci and Gary Koretzky, after which he joined the faculty of the Division of Rheumatology at CHOP as an Assistant Professor in 2009.
Ed’s research interest is the pathogenesis and treatment of cytokine storm syndromes, including the hemophagocytic syndromes Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) and Macrophage Activation Syndrome (MAS). These are uniquely pediatric immunologic conditions that result in severe systemic inflammation and death if unrecognized and untreated. Despite current therapies, mortality remains high for these conditions, hovering around 50% of patients. Ed has developed a novel murine model of MAS that has allowed the careful immunologic dissection of the mediators of disease. More recently, Ed has begun to work on novel mediators of HLH, and is developing a new immune modulating therapy to treat this disease. His work has been recognized with many awards from the American College of Rheumatology, the Histiocyte Society, and the Arthritis Foundation. He is the founding member of the International MAS Study Group and has given lectures internationally on MAS/HLH. Program Outcomes: Learners will be able to gain knowledge on roles of cytokines in the pathophysiology of rheumatic diseases to make better and faster diagnoses. Learners will also gain knowledge of cytokine patterns to determine disease activity and drug selection. They will also use knowledge of pharmacology to avoid making errors in interpretation of cytokine panels. |
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External Medicine: Addressing Cutaneous Manifestations of Rheumatic Disease
Galen Foulke, MD Galen Foulke is a dermatologist with special interest in rheumatic skin disease, focusing his research efforts on paraneoplastic dermatomyositis. Galen, a native of Williamsport PA, co-directs UNC's Rheumatology Dermatology Integrated Clinic, and UNC's multispecialty vasculitis clinic. When he's not talking about autoimmune skin disease or how to treat it, he is often talking about how much he misses the mountains and fall leaves of Pennsylvania.
Program Outcomes: Learners will increase confidence in correctly identifying specific rheumatic skin manifestations. Learners will feel more comfortable choosing and managing appropriate topical therapies. Learners can choose systematic therapies that are well positioned to address skin symptoms in addition to other organ manifestations. |
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Treatment of SLE in the New Decade: The New Decade is Upon Us
Richard Furie, MD Dr. Richard Furie, Chief of the Division of Rheumatology at Northwell Health, is a rheumatologist whose activities for the last several decades have focused on patient care, physician education, and clinical research in the area of anti-rheumatic drug development. He directs The Program in Novel Therapeutics, the Health System’s clinical research program in musculoskeletal disease. He also directs the Hospital’s SLE and Autoimmune Disease Treatment Center, which has become internationally recognized for its role in the development of new therapies for SLE. Regarded as one of the senior rheumatologists in the New York metropolitan area, he has served as a volunteer for the local chapters of the Arthritis Foundation and the Lupus Alliance, the Lupus Foundation of America, the SLE Foundation, the Lupus Research Alliance, and Lupus Therapeutics. For twenty years he served on many committees of the American College of Rheumatology and was named a Master of the College in 2018. Although often featured as a speaker at national and international conferences, Dr. Furie’s favorite educational venue is at home with his colleagues and trainees.
Program Outcomes: The learners will discuss unmet needs in Lupus treatment. They will be able to describe the pathogenesis of Lupus and link it to drug development strategies. Attendees will learn to analyze clinical trial results and how they might be applied in current practice. |
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Health Disparities in Rheumatology
Irene Blanco, MD, MS Irene Blanco, M.D., M.S., is a Professor in the Department of Medicine and the Associate Dean for Diversity Enhancement at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Her research interests focus on addressing health disparities and the social determinants of health in rheumatology. She is currently working on developing graduate medical education curriculum addressing disparities and health equity. In addition, Dr. Blanco focuses on the diversification of the medical and biomedical workforce as a whole. She believes that by bringing people from traditionally marginalized groups into medicine; and supporting them as they cultivate positions of leadership, are we to truly address the needs of our most vulnerable of patients.
Program Outcomes: Attendees will be able to reflect on their own implicit biases and describe how systematic racism affects health care outcomes. |
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2021 Thieves' Market
The original Thieves’ Market was located off the Sungei Road in Singapore after WWII. There, contraband goods, which had previously been looted from the British Military or stolen from other places, were sold. People would go there with the hope of finding lost items. Similarly, Rheumatologists have been attending “Thieves’ Markets” at Rheumatology meetings for decades with the hope of finding lost diagnoses. The educational purpose of this learning style is to tease savvy rheumatologists with diagnostically challenging patient presentations. It seems to help us become more discerning diagnosticians (an important attribute of all rheumatologists) recognized by our peers in medicine.
Our Finalists this year include: Thief 1: Kourtney Rudzinski, DO; Lehigh Valley Health Network Thief 2: Zaina Shahid, MD; Lehigh Valley Health Network Thief 3: Nabila Zamir, DO; Lehigh Valley Health Network |
CME ACCREDITATION AND DESIGNATION STATEMENT
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of the Pennsylvania Medical Society and The Pennsylvania Rheumatology Society. The Pennsylvania Medical Society is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
The Pennsylvania Medical Society designates this live activity for a maximum of 8.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
If you are experiencing issues, or require assistance claiming your credits; Please contact CMEAdmin@pamedsoc.org or call 1-800-228-7823.
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of the Pennsylvania Medical Society and The Pennsylvania Rheumatology Society. The Pennsylvania Medical Society is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
The Pennsylvania Medical Society designates this live activity for a maximum of 8.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
If you are experiencing issues, or require assistance claiming your credits; Please contact CMEAdmin@pamedsoc.org or call 1-800-228-7823.
