Winter 2016 (Volume 26, Number 4)

News From SOAR

By Volodko Bakowsky, MD, FRCPC

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SOAR members at the annual meeting.

The 33rd annual meeting of the Society of Atlantic Rheumatologists (SOAR) took place at Fox Harb’r Resort near Wallace, Nova Scotia from June 17-19, 2016. Once again, rheumatologists from the three Maritime provinces convened for a weekend of intellectual and social development.

This year’s David Hawkins Lecture in Rheumatology was given by Dr. Troy Torgerson, MD, PhD, from Seattle Children’s Research Institute in Seattle, Washington. He opened the meeting with How Do I Utilize the Lab to Evaluate the Immune system? Following this, he gave a second talk Immune Dysregulation Disorders—What Do They Look Like and How Do You Evaluate Them? Dr. Torgerson has the unique ability to make a complicated subject matter approachable, and by the end of his talks we were all left enraptured.

Our second lecturer was Dr. Julius Birnbaum, MD, from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the only dual-certified rheumatologist and neurologist in the United States. He spoke on the Neurologic Complications of Lupus followed by the Neurologic Complications of Sjogren’s.

Lest you think it was all work and no play, there was some “down time” budgeted for the pursuit of non-medical expert roles such as golfing, running, tennis and fly-fishing. We are all looking forward to SOAR 2017, which will once again be held at Fox Harb’r from June 23-25. Save the date!

Volodko Bakowsky, MD, FRCPC
Interim Division Head/Chief, Associate Professor
Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine,
Dalhousie University
President, SOAR, Halifax, Nova Scotia