Thank you to everyone who participated in this year's #CRArthritis!
We will continue to interview guests in March. If you missed Day 1 of our #CRArthritis series, you can find them in this post.
Interview 2 - All about the 2025 Canadian Rheumatology Association Annual Scientific Meeting
In this #CRArthritis interview, join Dr. Ahmad Zbib, Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Rheumatology Association (CRA) and Executive Director of the CRA Foundation, and Dr. Trudy Taylor, President of the CRA, as they share all the exciting initiatives at this year’s annual scientific meeting. They would like to thank the planning committee for all the hard work they’ve put into developing this year’s program.
Interview 3 - Arthritis Health Professions Association, ACPAC, and Rheum RAC in arthritis care
This #CRArthritis interview features Michelle Bridge, an Advanced Clinician Practitioner in Arthritis Care (ACPAC), and current President of the Arthritis Health Professions Association (AHPA). Michelle also serves as Member-at-Large of the ACPAC Special Interest Group leadership team. Michelle talks to us about her work as an ACPAC-trained Occupational Therapist and the special initiatives underway by the AHPA that benefit people living with arthritis.
Interview 4 - Closing the gap between primary care and rheumatology with Rheum RAC
Wait times are significantly increasing in accessing specialty care, like rheumatology, in particular in remote or underserved communities. In this #CRArthritis interview, we speak to Shawn Brady, Vice President of Arthritis Rehabilitation & Education Program and Innovation at Arthritis Society Canada, about the Rheumatology Rapid Assessment Clinic Model (Rheum RAC) and how it works to reduce wait times for referral and diagnosis. Shawn also discusses how this model effectively improves access to arthritis care for remote and equity-deserving communities.
Interview 5 - Virtual knee health program for those with increased risk of osteoarthritis from knee injury
In this #CRAthritis interview, Ellen Wang, ACE’s Programs Coordinator, interviews Dr. Jackie Whittaker. Dr. Whittaker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of British Columbia, Senior Scientist at Arthritis Research Canada and Clinical Specialist in Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy as recognized by the Canadian Physiotherapy Association. Jackie and Ellen discus the AHPA Pre-Course session titled StopOsteoARthritis (SOAR), a virtually delivered knee health program for persons living with increased risk of osteoarthritis (OA) due to activity related knee injury. Together they discuss why knee injuries occur, how they can lead to early onset OA and how to prevent them.
Interview 6 - Treatment approaches to cutaneous lupus for the rheumatologist
Dr. Victoria Werth is a Professor of Dermatology and Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Rheumatology. She specializes in clinical and translational research in autoimmune diseases.
Dr. Werth presented at CRA RheumReview: Canadian Clinical Updates – a full-day virtual event that runs concurrently with the CRA annual scientific meeting and is designed to update rheumatologists on hot topics in arthritis research. She speaks with ACE’s Kelly Lendvoy about her session at RheumReview titled “Approach to Cutaneous Lupus for the Rheumatologist” and will review clinical findings of cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE) and approaches to treatment.
In their conversation, Dr. Werth describes the importance of early diagnosis and testing for co-morbidities in patients with CLE. She also elaborates on the treatment options most commonly used for CLE and how patients should prepare for their treatment conversations with their health care providers.
Interview 7 - Making artificial intelligence in medicine a reality
One of the most anticipated sessions at the CRA annual scientific meeting is the keynote presentation on Applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Medicine: Moving from Hype to Reality by Dr. Muhammad Mamdani, Vice President of Data Science and Advanced Analytics at Unity Health Toronto and Director of the University of Toronto Temerty Faculty of Medicine Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education in Medicine.
In this #CRArthritis interview, Dr. Mamdani provides some real-world examples where AI is already improving patient care and describes some of the biggest challenges or risks when using AI in medicine, and how we can ensure that AI-based decisions are safe and reliable for patients.
Interview 8 - Inflammatory bowel disease and its connection with spondyloarthritis
In this #CRAthritis interview, Ellen Wang, ACE’s Programs Coordinator, interviews Dr. Kerri Novak, Associate Professor with the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Group in the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary. Dr. Novak is trained in intestinal ultrasound in Germany in 2012. When she returned to Calgary, she established the first inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) clinic in Canada to provide routine intestinal ultrasound for patients with IBD. Kerri and Ellen discuss the utility of non-invasive ultrasound for the diagnosis of IBD, IBD and its connection with spondyloarthritis, the evolution of IBD diagnosis and outcome measures, and how this technique can be implemented across the country.
Interview 9 - A mysterious case of autoinflammation and gene therapy in arthritis
In this #CRArthritis interview, Ellen Wang, ACE’s Programs Coordinator, speaks with Dr. Alaa Shehab, a Fellow at SickKids The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, about her “Clinical pearls and mysterious cases” presentation at this year’s meeting. Before working at SickKids, she was a staff and educator at Kuwait for the pediatric residency program. Dr. Shehab explains a mysterious case of autoinflammation she encountered in her practice and shares where the future is with gene therapy.
Interview 10 - An unfolding dilemma: myositis and amyloidosis
In this #CRArthritis interview, Ellen Wang, ACE’s Programs Coordinator, speaks with Ms. Lindsey Puddicombe, a medical student at Dalhousie University, about her “Clinical pearls and mysterious cases” presentation at this year’s meeting. Lindsey and Ellen discuss how diagnosing arthritis can be hard as there are many other diseases that share the same symptoms, such as myositis and amyloidosis. Lindsey also shares her work experience with the summer studentship at the Canadian Rheumatology Association in 2025 and how her mentors have shaped her career path.