Summer 2026 (Volume 36, Number 2)

RheumJeopardy! 2026

By Philip A. Baer, MDCM, FRCPC, FACR

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RheumJeopardy! returned as a plenary session at the 2026 CRA ASM in Halifax for the eleventh consecutive year, this time in a mid-afternoon timeslot on Saturday. I hosted and moderated from the Halifax Convention Centre. The 2026 event was again live only, with all attendees participating in answering the questions. Integration of the questions into the PheedLoop Go! meeting app and support from the BBBlanc and MKEM teams prevented any technical issues. After the East and West teams played to a scoreless tie in the 2025 edition, the prior East captain, Dr. Beth Hazel from Montreal, handled the duties of Chair and scorekeeper. We maintained the traditional East versus West format, with Toronto once again the dividing line this year. Our team captains were Michelle Bridge, an ACPAC-trained occupational therapist from Windsor-Essex, and the current President of the Arthritis Health Professions Association, and Dr. Amieleena Chhabra, a pediatric rheumatologist from British Columbia. For the second year running, the West captain met these criteria: a female pediatric rheumatologist with the initials AC (2025-Audrea Chen). Quite the coincidence.

As usual, only the members of the team whose captain had selected a question voted on the answer.  The never-used option for team captains to overrule their team’s answer was removed for this year. The team captains decided the Final Jeopardy wagers and answered the Final Jeopardy question on their own.

The session again drew a large audience of enthusiastic participants, including rheumatologists, trainees, allied health professionals and industry and patient attendees. The practice question related to the first female doctor to practice in Nova Scotia. The correct answer was Maria Angwin (1849-98), in whose honour the Dr. Maria Angwin Memorial Clinic was opened in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, in June 2025.

Twelve questions were selected in the main game, all from the higher value 800-and-1000-point lines. Categories included OA/Pediatric Rheumatology, Guidelines/Criteria, Familiar Drugs-New Tricks, Sight Diagnoses, Potpourri, and Choosing Wisely, with the questions for the latter category provided by the CRA Choosing Wisely Subcommittee, spearheaded by Drs. Arielle Mendel, Nicholas Richard and Martin Cohen.

Questions are designed to be challenging, but the two teams fared well, answering 9 of the 12 selected questions correctly. Questions selected included those related to the RETREAT and GLITTERS OA trials, CANRIO and Obesity Canada guidelines, and premedications for rituximab infusions. Voters correctly identified the sight diagnosis of acute sarcoidosis (Lofgren’s syndrome) but not the striatal hand deformities of Parkinson Disease. Questions that stumped the teams included one requiring a choice between four new and hard to pronounce biologics, with inebilizumab being the correct answer, and another on the single most important measure recommended in the CRA handbook on planetary health, which was deprescribing. Participants also knew the features of TAFRO syndrome, the Choosing Wisely recommendation not to do genetic testing for PFAPA syndrome, and the risks of using artificial intelligence (AI) to write essays.

At the end of the main Jeopardy round, the score favoured East with 4,200 points over West with 3,800. The Final Jeopardy category was “2026 CRA Awards of Distinction Winners.” The question centred on a sentence composed of famous song titles and lyrics by Steven Georgiou. The answer choices included Mo Osman, Cheryl Barnabe, Evelyn Sutton and Steven Katz. A hint suggested using right brain thinking and inversion to arrive at the correct answer, which was Steven Katz, as Steven Georgiou is better known as Cat Stevens.

Team East wagered 66% of their points while Team West wagered 33% on the Final Jeopardy question. Team East answered correctly, winning with 6,972 points, while Team West finished with a score of 2,546. This means Michelle Bridge will likely chair RheumJeopardy! in April 2027 in Vancouver if the ASM Scientific Committee grants us a place on the agenda for a twelfth year. I am already preparing a question bank if we are renewed for another season.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the RheumJeopardy! session. Special thanks as well to Drs. Shelly Dunne and Jane Purvis, my colleagues in Ontario, who took photographs of the event and tracked the questions we used in 2026 to ensure they do not reappear in future editions of RheumJeopardy!

From left to right: Michelle Bridge (Team captain of the East), Dr. Philip Baer (host
and organizer), Dr. Amieleena Chhabra (Team captain of the West), and Dr. Beth
Hazel (Chair and scorekeeper).

Philip A. Baer, MDCM, FRCPC, FACR
Editor-in-chief, CRAJ
Scarborough, Ontario