Dear All

Greetings for the new year. May it be filled with prosperity, health and happiness.

In this issue, a “Puzzle of the Issue” has been introduced in the “Fellows’ Corner” for our inquisitive youth (replies will be suitably awarded!). Two practical learning points are included in the “Quarterly Highlights” section – addition of spine MRI to image scoring may not be worth it in spondyloarthritis and from the DRESS study, dose reduction of TNFi in RA patients may be possible without losing benefit. From the bench side, promoting myofibroblast apoptosis by using “mimetics” for the same may halt fibrosis in scleroderma, and from there possible interpolation to other fibrotic diseases! Procalcitonin – to order or not to order is the question and our “Clinical Pearl” clarifies that for you. Two new drugs from the industry desk and two delightful write-ups – one in the Patients’ Perspective by Dr. Suma Balan and one by Dr. Anu Desai in the Fellows’ Corner – are Must Read.

Greetings to the newly inducted executive committee (EC) and reports on two of the most significant meetings we had organized all around the Country that appear in the “From the IRA” section by our Hon Secretary. As Dr. Zoya Zaidi will mesmerize you by her exquisite report on the African Safari tour she just did, one of our senior and very respected IRA past presidents will remind you, especially the fellows and younger lot, of what is important to be a good health professional as a rheumatologist, from his life experience – a Must Read.

Before I wind up, let me say a few words on the nucleus of this issue. Perhaps the most important event that happened in the last quarter was the Patient Doctor Interactive Meet at Vellore in mid-December. It was an initiative by our new president Dr. Debashish Danda. It was touching to see patients having come over from the whole of India to participate in it. They were given a platform. In a country where agony is accepted as a part of life, and healer is treated as God, despite his or her shortcomings, it was a reminder to all of us to work relentlessly so that we may be even half worth the Godliness bestowed upon us! One could only be reminded of Alexander Pope’s quote:

Teach me to feel another’s woe
To hide the fault I see
That mercy I to others show
That mercy show to me…

Sapan Pandya, Editor, IRA E Newsletter