ACR Journals on Air Podcast
Welcome to ACR Journals on Air, the ACR’s newest podcast series featuring interviews, commentary, and analysis on research from our three peer-reviewed journals: Arthritis & Rheumatology, Arthritis Care & Research, and ACR Open Rheumatology. Join us each episode for engaging discussions with authors and independent experts about recently published studies, their implications for clinical care, and how they move the field of rheumatology forward.
Whether it’s an expert analysis of a manuscript or deep dive with an author—our goal is the same—to understand the impact of the science and bring it from the bench to the bedside.
Podcast Host
Victoria Shanmugam, MBBS, MRCP, CCD, has clinical expertise caring for patients with autoimmune diseases, vasculitis, and chronic wounds. She has led several research studies investigating scleroderma, hidradenitis suppurativa, and the interplay of the host immune response and the microbiome in chronic wounds. Dr. Shanmugam is a frequently invited speaker at professional meetings. Her work in wound healing, hidradenitis, and scleroderma has been published in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, such as Arthritis Care and Research, Current Opinion in Rheumatology, International Wound Journal, and Clinical Rheumatology. Connect with Dr. Shanmugam on Twitter (@VickiShanmugam).
Episodes
New episodes will be available twice a month on Tuesdays.
Episode 46 – What Came First
Episode 45 – History Matters
Episode 44 – The RENEW Study in Scleroderma
Episode 43 – Is There an App for That?
Episode 42 – Protecting Against Uveitis in Axial Spondyloarthritis (AxSpA)
Browse previous episodes in the ACR Journals on Air archive.
Episode Show Notes
Caring for our patients means reducing symptoms and occurrences of flare-ups. However, caring for their whole self means a watchful eye on how chronic disease symptoms impact their daily life and mental health. Discovering patterns between depression and anxiety and such chronic diseases, like ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic arthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis, was the focus of Dr. Alyssa Howren’s latest study. In this episode, we take a look at this study, titled: "What Came First?” Population-Based Evaluation of Health Care Encounters for Depression and Anxiety Before and After Inflammatory Arthritis Diagnosis: Disentangling the Relationship Between Mental Health and Arthritis, and try to disentangle the web of disease-related depression and anxiety.
Alyssa Howren, PhD – Alyssa Howren, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University’s Department of Epidemiology and Population Health in the School of Medicine. Dr. Howren completed her MSc and PhD training at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences during which she was a trainee at Arthritis Research Canada. Her PhD training was supported by a Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) Doctoral Award, along with UBC’s Wayne Riggs Interdisciplinary Scholarship in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Andrew Nord Fellowship in Rheumatology. Her research focuses on using multiple data sources to provide evidence to disentangle the complex relationship between depression and anxiety with inflammatory arthritis and assess how people living with inflammatory arthritis are treated for their comorbid mental disorders. Methodological approaches in Dr. Howren’s work have included systematic reviews, qualitative research, and population-based studies using linked administrative health databases. Recently, she awarded a CIHR Fellowship for her postdoctoral research at Stanford University which aims to evaluate whether biases in clinical decision-making contribute to the sex and gender differences observed in the diagnosis of major depressive disorder.
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When disease strikes, time becomes a critical resource our patients cannot afford to waste. For those with axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA), an inordinate amount of time often goes by before a proper diagnosis is made, resulting in delays for crucial treatments to be rendered. The reasons for this delay in diagnosis, particularly among those with axSpA are diverse, complicated and not well understood. Our guest, Gregory McDermott, MD, MPH, attempted to better understand this diagnostic delay with his study, Factors Associated With Diagnostic Delay in Axial Spondyloarthritis: Impact of Clinical Factors and Social Vulnerability, in hopes that we may begin answering these challenges with solutions.
Gregory C. McDermott, MD, MPH – Gregory McDermott, MD, MPH, is an Instructor in Medicine and Attending Rheumatologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA.
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Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a painful and debilitating disease that our patients suffer from. However, a newly published study has concluded that there are some self-management interventions patients can engage with that have shown to improve fatigue, particularly for those newly diagnosed with SSc. Today, we review the procedures, interventions, results and conclusions of this study recently published in Arthritis Care & Research, Effects of a Resilience-Building Energy Management Program on Fatigue and Other Symptoms in Systemic Sclerosis: A Randomized Controlled Trial, with two of its authors, Susan L. Murphy, ScD, OTR and Mary Alore, MBA, and how your patients can benefit from its lessons.
Susan Murphy, ScD, OTR – Susan Murphy, ScD, OTR, is a Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and Internal Medicine, Rheumatology Division at the University of Michigan. Dr. Murphy’s research focuses on developing and implementing chronic symptom management interventions using behavioral and rehabilitation approaches to support holistic clinical management. She has a particular interest in advancing telerehab and mobile health interventions and directs the Telehealth and Rehabilitation Advancing Chronic Condition Research Center (TRACC-R) at the University of Michigan. Her work focuses on community-engaged research, partnering with individuals who have scleroderma. She is also the Director of a postdoctoral fellowship training grant on Community Living and Participation funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) and trains mentees in community-engaged research and clinical trial development.
Mary Alore, MBA – Mary Alore, MBA, is a patient advocate and has been actively involved in patient support groups since her diffuse scleroderma diagnosis in 2011. She is dedicated to helping others with this challenging condition, providing resources, and letting them know they are not alone.
As a peer mentor in the University of Michigan Peer Mentor Program, she is equipped to provide personalized guidance and recommendations to individuals with scleroderma. Observing how mentoring positively impacts participants has strengthened her commitment to supporting her peers.
She has bridged the gap between researchers and patients by assisting in recruitment efforts and informing research findings for various scleroderma studies as a patient stakeholder.
Mary is an IT specialist who helps bloggers and business owners with email marketing, technical support, and website development.
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As the need and demand for quality care increases, time in clinic needs to become more efficient. Working smarter, not harder, is a daily challenge for all in our field. With mobile technology streamlining so much and improvements in patient reported outcome (PRO) collection among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) needed, it had Daniel Solomon, MD, MPH, asking “...is there an app for that?”
In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Solomon, first author of the study, A Mobile Health Application Integrated in the Electronic Health Record for Rheumatoid Arthritis Patient–Reported Outcomes: A Controlled Interrupted Time-Series Analysis of Impact on Visit Efficiency, recently published in Arthritis & Rheumatology.
Daniel H. Solomon, MD, MPH – Daniel Solomon, MD, MPH, is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Section of Clinical Sciences in Rheumatology and is co-appointed in the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics. The focus of his research is health services research, quality of care, and pharmacoepidemiology as it pertains to rheumatic diseases and osteoporosis. Specific topics of interest include indicators of quality prescribing, patterns of medication use for osteoporosis, quality improvement in osteoporosis care, and cardiovascular disease in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Dr. Solomon is Chair of the Quality of Care Committee of the American College of Rheumatology and was awarded the Henry Kunkel Young Investigator Award from the ACR in 2007. He attended Yale College, Yale School of Medicine, and Harvard School of Public Health. His residency and fellowship training in rheumatology were completed at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. His clinical practice is at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
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Recent research indicates that those who suffer from axial spondyloarthritis (AxSpA) may have some hope in protecting against events of uveitis. Katie Bechman, MBChB, BSc, MRCP, first author of Incidence of Uveitis in Patients With Axial Spondylarthritis Treated With Biologics or Targeted Synthetics: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis, explains her team’s research findings and how they came to this exciting conclusion.
Katie Bechman, MBChB, BSc, MRCP – Katie Bechman, MBChB, BSc, MRCP, currently works at the Centre for Rheumatic Diseases at King's College London. She is a NIHR funded clinical lecturer and rheumatology registrar. Her research interests focus on inflammatory arthritis and pharmacovigilance.
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