Physician-in-Chief and Chairman of the Division of Rheumatology, Hospital for Special Surgery
The Joseph P. Routh Professor of Medicine, Weill Medical College of Cornell University
Introduction
Musculoskeletal disorders and arthritis alter the lives of more than 40 million people in the U.S., and arthritis is the most common cause of disability. Rheumatology is the specialty of medicine that cares for people with the more than 100 types of arthritis.
The rheumatologists at Hospital For Special Surgery are acknowledged as the best in the world in the spheres of patient care, medical education, and basic and clinical research focused on finding the causes and cures of arthritis.
Given the extraordinary medical advances that have occurred in the past few years, HSS physicians are now poised to prevent many joint disorders, cure a significant portion of them and universally improve the lives of patients who have arthritis. This is because our institution is at the cutting edge of research and is second to none in its ability to deliver the highest quality of care to patients who are afflicted with joint and autoimmune disorders.
Employing a multidisciplinary diagnostic and therapeutic approach that is unique to this institution, you can be assured of the best and most up-to-date and caring treatment.
Understanding rheumatologic diseases
The joint is a complex organ of the body that functions at its best when all of its parts are working well and in unison. However, there are many disorders that can damage its many components either singly or all at once, including cartilage, bone, ligaments and tendons.
Osteoarthritis, the most common type, causes cartilage and bone abnormalities that can lead to joint damage, and, in the worst case, the need for joint replacement. We are now studying new medications that can actually modify this disorder and, hopefully, prevent the advancement of the joint dysfunction. Significant advances in the treatment and prevention of osteoarthritis are available at HSS.
Rheumatoid arthritis, which occurs in approximately 1% of the population, has a greater potential for causing irreversible joint damage in many parts of the body. It is an autoimmune disorder in which the body's immune system wages battle on itself and is probably triggered by some environmental factor such as a viral infection.
The greatest research and therapeutic advances have been made in this disorder and we now, daily, reverse the ravages of this disorder with advanced drugs that safely re-set the immune response and turn off its destructive personality. Along with these disorders, HSS rheumatologists are considered the experts in the care of other disorders such as:
- Other autoimmune disorders such as systemic lupus erythematosus, scleroderma, polymyositis and dermatomyositis, Sjogren's syndrome and various forms of vasculitis such as Wegener's granulomatosus, polyarteritis nodosa, temporal arteritis and polymyalgia rheumatica;
- Infectious arthritis such as Lyme disease, septic arthritis, viral arthritis due to hepatitis B and C and parvovirus B 19
- Inflammatory joint disorders such as psoriatic arthritis, reactive arthritis or Reiter's syndrome, ankylosing spondylitis, and the arthritis associated with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.
- Fibromyalgia, tendonitis, bursitis and overuse syndromes
Experience Counts
The 27 rheumatologists at HSS see more than 10,000 new patients per year and 35,000 follow-ups. This high volume as well as complexity makes the level of care provided extraordinary and unique. Because many rheumatic diseases tend to be chronic, patients who come to HSS benefit from developing long-term and close relationships with their rheumatologist.
These knowledgeable and compassionate physicians understand the illnesses that they treat and bring the most modern and optimal treatments to their patients. Their association with the foremost academic medical center in the world brings the best medical care to each doctor-patient interaction. We focus our efforts on caring, trust, communication and the appreciation of what state-of-the-art medicine is.
World Class, Integrated Rheumatologic Care
On a day-by-day basis, the HSS rheumatologists interact closely with many other essential health care professionals necessary to improve our patient's lives and rid them of the limitations imposed upon them by arthritis. This includes our world class Orthopaedic surgeons, physical and occupational therapists, radiologists, anesthesiologists and clinical and basic research scientists.
As an academic medical center we are dedicated to putting ourselves out of business through research. We are constantly defining the main clinical issues that affect our patients and then going back to the laboratory to find the reason they exists and a cure for it. The National Institutes of Health, the Federal Government and innumerable Foundations have lauded the research performed at HSS as the best there is and supported our research for the past fifty years.
The Bright Future
We not only look forward to a time when our patients no longer have their lives altered by arthritis but we are working towards that goal. Our modern clinical and research facilities are poised to find the causes and cures of arthritis and autoimmune disorders. As the Musculoskeletal Center of Excellence, we offer a unique medical environment in which improvement of our patients' lives is an everyday occurrence and the cure of all disease a goal that is just on the horizon.
