This book provides pediatric and adult rheumatologists with a guide to understanding developmental and psychosocial issues of young adulthood and how they relate to healthcare and disease self-management. Transitioning youth with chronic and lifelong autoimmune, rheumatic, and musculoskeletal diseases (RMD) from pediatric to adult care is a complex process. These conditions have an unpredictable course involving multiple organs, which often accumulate damage as patients age. Chronic pain or pain amplification, fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, anxiety, and depression co- exist in many patients. Advance treatments have improved outcomes, but have not prevented some patients from progressing to disability from joint damage, to blindness, end stage renal disease, etc. This book discusses the expanding research and data on improving the transition process and innovative programs and projects that have been developed and implemented in the US and internationally to help deal with this process.

Healthcare in Rheumatology: Meeting the Needs of the Teen to Young Adult Patient is of interest to all providers dealing with pediatric and young adult patients with rheumatic conditions, including pediatric and adult rheumatologists, advance practice nurses, trainees in rheumatology, adolescent primary care providers and pediatricians, rehabilitation specialists, pain service providers, and mental health specialists.

Lisa F. Imundo, MD

Professor of Pediatrics in Medicine

Columbia University Medical Center

Division of Rheumatology

New York, NY

Dr. Imundo is recognized by her peers as an expert in the diagnosis and treatment of rheumatic diseases. She is a pediatric rheumatologist who has made her professional career at Columbia University in New York City. She was appointed both Division Director and Fellowship Director shortly after completing her fellowship; her research focus is translational and clinical studies of autoimmune diseases of childhood. Under her leadership, the Pediatric Rheumatology Division tripled in size and cares for an extremely diverse patient population, including underserved patients. Dr. Imundo has been the primary investigator for multiple pediatric rheumatology studies. She is also an active participant in multiple international research consortiums. She has been a leader on education, serving on the American Board of Rheumatology and the ACGME Milestone project. She has active educational programs for rheumatology, pediatric, physiatry, advance nursing and physical therapy trainees.

In 2014, she was appointed to a joint faculty position in the Department of Medicine and has initiated an innovative program in adolescent rheumatology and transition care expanding care to young adults. She has established collaborative disease specific clinics focusing on patients from age 12–24 years. Building on her experience, she addresses issues in transition with both her pediatric and adult rheumatology colleagues.

 

Jason Liebowitz, MD

Assistant Professor of Medicine

Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology

Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons 

New York, NY

Jason Liebowitz, MD, FACR, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he also serves as Associate Program Director of the Rheumatology Fellowship Program. He completed undergraduate studies at Johns Hopkins University, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He attended medical school at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and completed his Internal Medicine residency at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, where he served as Chief Resident. He completed his Rheumatology fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital and was nominated for the 2019 Distinguished Fellow Award from the American College of Rheumatology. His research and writings have been published in The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, JAMA Internal Medicine, Arthritis and Rheumatology, and Arthritis Care and Research among other journals. He participated in fellowships with the American Federation for Aging Research (Medical Student Training in Aging Research), the American Austrian Foundation (Max Kade Clinical Clerkship in Vienna, Austria), and the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (through Yale School of Medicine). He is a medical journalist and has had articles published in The New Yorker and The Atlantic, and he is also a staff writer for The Rheumatologist.