Rheumatology Fellowship Program

Mission Statement:

The purpose of the CSMC fellowship program in rheumatology is to provide a blend of independent and supervised learning that incorporates inpatient and outpatient care for a diverse patient population with rheumatic disease.  The goal of the program is to train rheumatologists who will move on to academic research or private rheumatology practice.

Program Overview:

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (CSMC) provides the primary inpatient experience for the fellowship program.  As a private, non-profit medical center, CSMC is dedicated to excellence in delivering direct health care, performing biomedical research, educating and training physicians and other health care professionals, and improving community health.  CSMC operates one of the largest research programs of any private, non-profit hospital in the country.  Against this backdrop, attending faculty coverage is extensive, with a new attending every two weeks and an average of two faculty in each outpatient clinic.  The patient population is diverse, ranging from indigent patients with neglected and often under-diagnosed rheumatic disease to private patients with early onset rheumatic disease and immediate access to medical care.  A balanced blend of independent and supervised work is available to CSMC fellows, with constant monitoring by the program director to ensure that this balance is maintained.  An important component of the CSMC training program is learning to be a rheumatology consultant able to address the needs of the referring physician as well as the medical needs of the patient.  This learning objective is often missing from other training programs.

Overall Program Goals:

The primary goal of the CSMC Rheumatology Fellowship Program is to train physicians to provide high quality and scholarly care to patients with rheumatic diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, systematic lupus erythematosus, vasculitis syndromes, osteoarthritis, scleroderma, dermatomyositis, ankylosing spondylitis, fibromyalgia, and a variety of other forms of non-articular rheumatism.  A second major goal is to train physicians to understand the impocmrtance of research by encouraging and enabling them to perform meritorious rheumatology investigations.  In so doing, fellows come to appreciate the role research plays in the diagnosis, management, and outcome of our patients.  The program provides structured didactic activities, research, and clinical experiences, while maintaining flexibility for trainees to meet their individual career goals in academic medicine and/or clinical practice.  Through the training curriculum, fellows learn the pathophysiology, differential diagnosis, and treatment approach for patients with complaints suggestive of, or consistent with, rheumatic diseases.  Research experience is an integral component of the program, aimed at expanding the knowledge base, critical thinking skills, and problem solving abilities of the trainee.  The program is designed for fellows to obtain competence at the level expected of the new rheumatology specialist consultant by the end of the second year of training.
The CSMC Rheumatology Fellowship Program expects fellows to obtain competence in the following areas: medical knowledge, patient care, practice-based learning, systems-based practice, interpersonal and communication skills, and professionalism.  

Overall Educational Objectives:

• Apply evolving knowledge of the patho-physiologic mechanisms of rheumatic diseases, including new insights into immunologic, genetic, and environmental factors, to the management of patients with these diseases.
• Evaluate epidemiologic data on incidence and prevalence of rheumatic diseases, as well as new strategies for identifying markers of disease susceptibility and severity, in order to diagnose rheumatic diseases at earlier stages when there are better opportunities to treat reversible symptoms and prevent long-term damage and loss of function.
• Assess current and emerging diagnostic tools including imaging techniques, specific rheumatologic laboratory tests, and evidence-based reviews of data, and their application to the effective management of patients in both the inpatient and ambulatory setting.
• Interpret new clinical trial data on the safety, efficacy, and appropriate use of current and emerging therapies for rheumatic diseases, in order to implement treatment strategies with optimal disease-modifying effect.
• Appraise current and emerging strategies for managing pain and co-morbidities, such as cardiovascular disease and pulmonary hypertension, in order to improve quality of life for patients with acute and chronic rheumatic diseases.
• Use a multidisciplinary approach for treatment of rheumatologic diseases.

Participating Institutions:

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles County-Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles Free Clinic, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Venice Family Clinic.

For more information about the rheumatology fellowship, please contact: