Rheumatology 2023

CONTENTS

03 4-5 06 7-8 09 10

Best Wishes

A brief summary of our graduating fellows and where they are now headed.

New Fellows

A welcome to our five new fellows that started in July 2023. Learn more about the individuals below!

New Faculty Bio

We're excited to welcome Dr. Anna Helena Jonsson Learn More about her transition to the University.

Save the Date

Take a look into some our memorable past events and speakers. Updates to upcoming events and speakers are also included!

Research Highlights

Our amazing research team giving us insight on the latest news and updates!

Faculty Recognition

In this issue we highlight three of our faculty, Fan Zhang, PhD and Isaac Harley, MD, PhD and Kevin Deane MD, PhD

LET'S STAY CONNECTED.

You can find more information and updates on our website here, or click the links below to stay updated through our social media.

BEST WISHES

The Division of Rheumatology would like to send its best wishes to our recently graduated fellows, Corwin McGee, MD and Smarika Sapkota, MD. Both Corwin and Smarika made an impact while they were here pursing their clinical fellowship. Dr. McGee will continue his work in South Carolina alongside Prism Health and Dr. Sapkota will continue her work locally at National Jewish Health.

Corwin McGee, MD Smarika Sapkota, MD

NEW FELLOW BIOS

Christine Loftis, MD Clinical and Research Fellow

Christine is a Clinical and Research Fellow with interests within research surrounding healthcare disparities. Christine became interested in our fellowship after meeting our amazing clinicians and physician scientists Christine describes her first moments with us "like home", and she is excited to watch her growth as clinician and making memories with the department. Some of her hobbies include attending concerts, exploring restaurants and spending time with her son Christopher, partner Andrew, her mom Trina and her dog Blaze!

Samuel Lazaroff, MD Clinical Fellow- Dual Fellowship with Pediatric Fellowship

Samuel is a Clinical and Dual Fellow with the Rheumatology and Pediatric division. Samuel's interests include pediatric to adult transitions of care, health literacy, and medical education Samuel is excited to explore a new part of the country while learning how to be good rheumatologist. When asked what inspires him the most he said" his patients"! His favorite hobbies include college football, hiking, and chess.

Julia Chernis, MD Clinical Fellow

Julia is a Clinical Fellow, and some of her interest include Scleroderma, and Immunotherapy-related arthritis. Some of her hobbies include trying out new table-top games with friends, juggling different crochet projects, and exploring Denver with her husband and dog.

Daniele Marcy, MD Clinical and Research Fellow

Daniele is a clinical and research fellow, her current interests surround Women's health and Lupus. Some of her hobbies include spending time with family and friends, baking, cooking, exercising, hiking

Amarjyot Randhawa, MD Clinical Fellow

Amarjyot is currently a clinical fellow, and she is inspired by her patients. She mentioned how she " genuinely enjoys learning the pathophysiology behind disease processes, figuring out answers to clinical problems and applying that knowledge to address patient concerns. This drew her to CU because she says the faculty are "passionate educators who promote inquisitiveness and provide regular feedback to hone individual skills". She explains how she feels "more confident in her practice each day".

Stay connected with events and updates!

Questions ?

Please Contact Rachael.Fuhrman@cuanschutz.edu

WELCOME NEW FACULTY

Brigham's Women's Hospital to the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Anna Helena Jonsson, MD, PhD, joined the Division of Rheumatology in July from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. She may have just arrived in Aurora, but she has many links with the Division already. She completed her MD and PhD degrees at Washington University in St. Louis and she did her PhD work with Wayne Yokoyama, Chief of the Division of Rheumatology at WashU. After Helena’s research took an unexpected turn into the complement field in 2021, Dr. Holers agreed to join her K08 grant advisory committee and provided fantastic advice and feedback on her project.

Prior to coming to CU Anschutz, Helena was an Instructor and Associate Physician in rheumatology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she did her internal medicine residence and rheumatology fellowship. She completed her post-doc research in Michael Brenner’s lab, studying granzyme K-expressing CD8 T cells in rheumatoid arthritis. She was also heavily involved in the Accelerating Medicines Partnership Program: RA/SLE, leading the synovial tissue disaggregation pipeline in 2019 and playing a significant role in data analysis and manuscript writing since that time. She worked closely with Fan Zhang PhD, another recent transplant from BWH to the CU Division of Rheumatology, on both the CD8 T cell project and the AMP consortium work, and she’s hoping for many more productive collaborations with Fan in the coming years.

Helena is starting her independent research lab on the third floor of the Barbara Davis Center Her work will focus on CD8 T cells in rheumatoid arthritis and other rheumatologic diseases using human blood, synovial fluid, and synovial tissue samples as well as mouse models. She sees rheumatology patients in the Outpatient Pavilion every Tuesday afternoon and will also attend on the consult service. She is thrilled to be here and is looking forward to getting to know her know colleagues on both the clinical and research sides.

Martin Kriegel, MD, PhD Associate Professor Adjunct of

Faculty Dr. Melissa Griffith’s VuMedi video “Interstitial Lung Disease in Rheumatic Diseases” was 3rd most watched in DOM !

EVENTS CALENDAR

In April of this year, the division was able to host the 2nd Annual Sterling G west Educational Symposia. Sterling West was honored for his mentorship, work and dedication to the department of Rheumatology.

Invited guest speakers Dr. Lisa Schreiber and Melver Anderson each gave lectured talks.

Interested

Registration now open

Research Highlights

Research Team expansion to help with recruitment for Division of Rheumatology

Kaitlyn Boyle joins us from WellPower where she was a counselor at multiple mental health and drug abuse centers around Denver. She has also worked in health insurance, higher education recruitment, and art education. She has always had a keen interest in Rheumatology and is very happy to join the BDC and UCHealth teams!

Rheumatology Research Studies

Did you know that our rheumatology clinical research studies can be found on the divisional website? If you have patients interested in research or are curious about the various active studies please visit: https://medschool.cuanschutz.edu/rheumatology/research/specificrheumatic-diseases . Let us know if you have any updates that need to be made for your studies!

If you are a provider at Anschutz or one of our affiliates and would like to be added to our Rheumatology Research Studies newsletter that highlights our studies to be able to help your patients participate in research please email Marie.Feser@cuanschutz.edu to get added to the distribution

Faculty Recognition

Last Month The School of Medicine’s Program to Advance Physician Scientists and Translational Research (TRSP) was pleased to announce that Dr. Zhang was one of seven junior faculty from across the School of Medicine to be named the 2023 Translational Research Scholar.

Our Faculty Dr. Fan Zhang and her lab are at the intersection of the Department of Medicine Division of Rheumatology and the Department of Biomedical Informatics Center for Health Artificial Intelligence.

Check out the Zhang Labe here!

Congratulations are also in order to our Faculty Dr. Isaac Harley for receiving the VA Career development award!

Clinical Information

Our clinical practice, led by Dr. Duane Pearson, offers excellent general eumatology patient care and training opportunities to fellows, residents and medical students. In addition, we have many specialized clinical programs cluding, Autoimmune Lung Disease, Inflammatory Eye Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus, Spondyloarthritis, Psoriatic Arthritis, and Inflammatory or Degenerative Joint Disease.

ur faculty are also leaders in telemedicine, virtual care delivery, and primary re physician education aimed toward improving the access to rheumatologic are for patients and better disease management for both patients and their primary care providers. In partnership with the State of Colorado and the Department of Health Care Policy and Finance, Dr. Pearson leads a program to expand Tele-enabled Community-based Rheumatology Practices in Rural and Frontier Colorado.

In addition to continuity clinic experience and inpatient consultative work, our trainees are offered subspecialty training in several additional fields such as musculoskeletal ultrasound, connective tissue disease associated lung disease, metabolic bone disease, and inflammatory eye disease among others.

In October The Division of Rheumatology decided to expand our training sites to UCH Cherry Creek, allowing the fellows to gain additional musculoskeletal ultrasound skills from Dr. Jonathan Dau.

"The Division of Rheumatology expands its training sites to UCH Cherry Creek".

For inclusion in the next Divisional Newsletter please complete this form

For questions contact Jaida Johnson

Business Services Professional

jaida.johnson@cuanschutz.edu