Fellows

Second Year Fellows 2009 - 2010

    Tina Mahajan, MD                     Smitha Rudraraju, MD             Armine Tumyan, MD 

First Year Fellows 2008 - 2009

Robina Chowdhery, MD                 Shawnta Pittman-Hobbs, MD                 Blair Solow, MD

Goals

The principal goal of the fellowship in Rheumatology is for the trainee to acquire a comprehensive understanding of the pathophysiology, epidemiology, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, and therapeutic management of the rheumatic diseases.  Great emphasis placed is on the ability to provide expert consultation to primary care physicians, and on the ability to provide primary management for patients with immunologically based rheumatic disease.  In addition, it is expected that most trainees will demonstrate academic excellence by participating in a research project during the fellowship.

Objectives

Briefly, trainees will be expected to acquire competence and sophistication in the following areas as they pertain to the rheumatic diseases:

            •        Clinical care of patients including medical history, physical examination, laboratory analysis, imaging studies, diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, and histopathology.

            •        In-depth knowledge and understanding of the rheumatic diseases, including their pathophysiology, etiology, epidemiology, and clinical features.

            •        Optimal use of diagnostic tests to establish the presence or activity of these diseases and formulation of an appropriate treatment plan.

            •        Understanding of the mechanisms of action, indications, contraindications, dosages, adverse effects, monitoring required, and cost of the agents used to treat rheumatic disease.

            •        Basic knowledge in the above areas as they apply to the main categories of pediatric rheumatic disease.

            •        Skills in literature review, hypothesis generation, techniques of investigation, and data interpretation and presentation.

            •        Sound professionalism in providing conscientious, competent, and compassionate care for patients with rheumatic disease.

Following the satisfactory completion of two years of clinical subspecialty training, all trainees who have also completed accredited residency training in internal medicine (and hence are eligible) are also expected to take and pass the subspecialty examination in rheumatology administered by the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Follow this link, Subspecialty Training in Rheumatology Handbook,  for a copy of the training program handbook, including curriculum, for subspecialty training in Rheumatology at the UT Southwestern Medical Center.