Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Rheumatology 101

My bookshelf has room for lots more books. 

The "Applying the Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule) to Rheumatology" entry in Dr. Paul Sufka's blog reinforces that which many sjoggies already know: many physicians and health care providers have a woefully poor understanding of rheumatologic disease. Read this from The Blog of Paul Sufka, MD:

Since entering the field of rheumatology, I have too frequently heard comments from clinicians admitting their lack of knowledge and understanding in the field of rheumatology.
I understand why rheumatology has gotten a reputation as being difficult. The basis for the understanding of rheumatic conditions is the immune system, where our knowledge is becoming ever complex. Many of the rheumatic conditions are uncommon, so clinicians are less comfortable recognizing and treating them. To make things worse, we order a number of oddly named antibodies and use medications that affect the immune system in strange ways. 
The Pareto Principle (80/20 rule
The Pareto Principle says that 80% of the results come from 20% of the effort, knowledge, or resources. This rule has been shown effective  in numerous fields outside of medicine, especially business and finance, and can be used as an effective technique to approach any difficult topic.
With this in mind, I’ll try to focus on the 20% of rheumatology that I think is the most high yield for those outside of rheumatology to understand.

Continue reading this excellent post here.

Rheumatology awareness and education is needed in all spheres of medicine. Keep on keeping on, Dr. Sufka!

4 comments:

Paul Sufka said...

Julia,
Thanks for sharing my post. Glad you found it helpful!
All the best,
Paul

Julia Oleinik said...

Dr. Sufka -- It was my pleasure. Well written and important information.

Mary Meyer said...

Hi Julia,

hope you had a great Thanksgiving. I enjoyed reading this article. My husband has been doing alot of research on salivary stimulatiion after my most recent consult on my thick saliva dry mouth issues. Have you ever had acupuncture or heard of any patients having salivary gland acupuncture?? I have had very poor results with Evoxac. The specialist I just saw in New York told us that quality of saliva is as imoortant as quantity.....Unfortunately, the one thing that was helping me Numoisyn lozenges have been discontinued by the manufacturer.....UGH!!

Any advice???

Regards,

Mary Meyer

Unknown said...

I really appreciate this post. Like your clients, I too have little to no knowledge about rheumatology. My aunt was diagnosed with a rheumatologic disease. I'm trying to understand what it actually entails so that I can better help her cope with her condition. I never thought it would be so complicated. I wish I could have read your linked post to understand rheumatology, but it went to a site about WordPress. Do you have any words of wisdom I should live by to help my aunt with her condition?

Deanna R. Jones | http://www.drsoloway.com/default.aspx?id=21

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