Rheumatology

Overview

The Rheumatology Team aims to provide the best possible Pediatric Rheumatology care to children in Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana as a center of excellence and as a resource for North America, to conduct high quality research, and to educate health care providers about childhood rheumatic diseases.

Clinical Programs

The Mission of the Pediatric Rheumatology Division is to provide expert, cutting edge comprehensive team based care for patients with Pediatric Rheumatic Diseases by working closely with referring health care providers and to be a rapid consultative resource for the Pacific Northwest for health care providers regarding patients with potential rheumatologic diseases.

Pediatric Rheumatic Diseases include: Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (formerly known as Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis), Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Juvenile Dermatomyositis, Scleoderma, Behcet’s Disease, Wegener’s Granulomatosus, vasculitis, periodic fever syndromes, and chronic recurrent multifocal osteomyelitis.

Patients must be initially evaluated by their primary care provider and then referred using the New Appointment Referral Form (NARF) (www.seattlechildrens.org). For urgent referrals, primary care providers can call the rheumatologist on call at: (206) 987-2057.

Research Programs

Our research missions are:

To develop new and more effective treatments for pediatric rheumatic diseases and better understand their long term outcomes.
To expand and support basic science and translational research into the etiology and pathogenesis of rheumatic diseases.
To encourage and enable patient participation in studies that will further the development of best treatments such that every child with an identifiable rheumatologic disease has the opportunity to participate in a research study.
To develop clinical educator research and technology, improving access to care and education of physicians about pediatric rheumatic disease.

Training Programs

Our educational missions are

To train future Pediatric Rheumatologists to carry out independent basic science, translational or clinical research and to care for children with rheumatologic diseases
To educate adult rheumatology fellows, pediatric, family practice and orthopedic residents about basic diagnoses and care of patients with pediatric rheumatologic diseases.
To provide continuing medical education to health care providers in the WWAMI area about Pediatric Rheumatologic Diseases, their their diagnoses and treatments.

Medical Students: Student rotations are offered on a monthly basis. Medical students attend inpatient rounds, help to evaluate patients in the outpatient clinic, and participate in joint injections.

Fellowship Program:
The fellowship program at Seattle Children’s Hospital prepares fellows for a career in academic pediatric rheumatology. The first year of fellowship focuses on clinical medicine in pediatric rheumatology. During this year the fellow is actively engaged in patient care, learning to diagnose and treat children with rheumatic disease. In the second and third year of fellowship the trainee focuses on developing skills as a research scientist for a career in academic medicine. Fellows focus their research and training in basic or translational research, clinical research, or as a clinical educator. Affiliations allow fellows to pursue research in departments at: