Department of Rheumatology
About
Program Overview
The Department of Rheumatology is composed of a diverse group of healthcare providers, including our referral and scheduling team, nurses, fellows, and faculty, all with specialty knowledge in rheumatology. The Rheumatology Fellowship program accepts two fellows each year and is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). We care for patients from southwest Virginia and surrounding areas. We offer direct clinical care (both diagnostic and therapeutic) for patients with the full gamut of rheumatologic conditions. We provide excellent care and service to our patients.
We also provide second-opinion services, which may potentially stretch over a number of visits in order to confirm a diagnosis. Our scope of clinical practice involves all aspects of clinical rheumatology, with a primary focus on diseases that require immunosuppressive therapy. We also care for patients with auto-inflammatory disease, crystal-induced inflammatory arthritis, as well as soft-tissue rheumatism. We provide procedural-based care encompassing diagnostic and therapeutic ultrasound and injections.
Our Rheumatology specialists have different areas of focus, including systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, and crystal arthritis. The Department of Rheumatology excels in providing patient care in these areas of interest and is involved in both regional and national activities.
Our team also provides hospital and/or telephone-based care and services to Carilion facilities and providers. Our goal is to provide individualized quality service that meets the needs of our patients, as well as to address rheumatology questions from the referring team. Referrals are welcome, evaluated, and scheduled based on the clinical request and the severity of the condition. The streamlined referral process is centralized, and the records are always reviewed by a rheumatologist. A holistic review of the entire referral packet is undertaken, and this has an approximate turnaround time of seven days. If we need to contact the referring office for further information, this may add to the referral turnaround time.
We welcome feedback from all, as feedback assists in our continued assessment and improvements in our approach to patient care. Please direct feedback to our Division Chief, Adegbenga A. Bankole, M.D.
Our Rheumatology clinic does not typically follow fibromyalgia, chronic pain, and other neuropathic pain syndromes. We do evaluate chronic pain patients to ensure that other undiagnosed rheumatologic conditions are not also present. However, chronic pain syndromes are not generally addressed by rheumatologists. It is recommended that long-term follow-up for chronic pain syndromes occur with primary care and/or pain management. The Department of Rheumatology does not provide chronic pain therapy in the form of injections or prescriptions. We do not provide services related to workers' compensation, disability applications, or online/electronic second opinions.
Virginia Tech Carilion Partnership
The Department of Rheumatology is actively involved in teaching the next generation of doctors at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine (VTCSOM). Our physicians are faculty members of VTCSOM, and give lectures on such topics as immunology, rheumatoid arthritis, and ultrasonography. They also proctor small group learning activities and take part in patient wrap-ups. The faculty are also involved as members and/or leaders of various committees at VTCSOM. Our department accepts medical students for the Rheumatology Elective Program which is designed as an intensive two- or four-week clinical course. Medical students become immersed in a supportive, structured learning environment, with didactic sessions every morning and clinical bedside teaching. They are also required to complete one presentation during the elective. We strongly encourage students to take the internal medicine clerkship prior to the rheumatology elective to maximize the benefits of the elective. The Department of Rheumatology has a very strong research partnership with Virginia Tech and has completed a number of collaborative research projects as well as ongoing funded collaborative research studies pertaining to systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) with our research partner/collaborator, Xin M. Luo, Ph.D.
Mission, Goals and Strengths
Our mission is in line with those of Carilion Clinic: to improve the health of the communities we serve. We achieve this through medical curiosity, excellence of education, compassion for our patients, and a commitment to service excellence, and by actively engaging and participating with the community at large.
Community participation is probably the most important attribute of any successful practice, as it humanizes medicine as well as the providers of medical care. To this end, Carilion Rheumatology is actively involved with the Arthritis Foundation and the Lupus Foundation of America and participates in community-based medical and fundraising events. We are actively involved with the community of medicine and advocacy through the Medical Society of Virginia, the Virginia Society of Rheumatology, and the American College of Rheumatology.
Particular to rheumatology is the amount of support our patients require when a rheumatologic diagnosis has been made. The journey towards a rheumatologic diagnosis is long and arduous, and can be filled with frustration, so we are very passionate about assisting when possible. In essence, such a diagnosis commits our patients to lifelong therapy. Our goal is to provide exceptional quality medical services to our patients, which we are able to achieve in step with Carilion Clinic’s ethos of access to care.
The strength of Carilion Rheumatology is our willingness and the obligation we feel to assist patients in all aspects of their medical journey. This includes timely visits, diagnostic procedures/tests, and appropriate treatments. We even assist where possible in obtaining affordable medications and therapies. This allows us to provide the same quality of care to all patients regardless of their socio-economic barriers to care, helping to address health inequities. To accomplish this, we make use of assistance programs including the Carilion Medication Assistance Program (CMAP) and our specialty pharmacy.
Message from Leadership
Department specs
The department consists of six physicians and four rheumatology fellows. Our staff includes an office manager, a division secretary, six clinical nurses, a referral coordinator who manages more than 4,500 referrals a year, and a GME program manager. We have phone support from Carilion Clinic advice line nurses. We operate out of our dedicated outpatient facility (Riverside 3) and have a 10-chair infusion center in our Riverside 1 building. We also have multiple satellite infusion centers within the community.
Services
- General Rheumatology
- Infusion Center
- Lupus Clinic
- Research and Trials Clinic
- Procedure Clinic
- Fellows Clinic
- Ultrasound
- Nail fold capillary microscope
Clinical Interests
- Systemic lupus
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Crystal-induced arthritis
Conditions Treated
- Spondyloarthropathy
- Vasculitis
- Autoinflammatory conditions
- Systemic sclerosis
- Inflammatory muscle disease
- Sjogren's syndrome
- Mixed connective tissues disease
- Antiphospholipid syndrome
- Polymyalgia rheumatica
- Behect's syndrome
- Relapsing polychondritis
Awards
- Best doc awards
- Bedside manner awards
- Mentoring awards
Areas We Serve
- Southwest Virginia
- All patients welcome
Quick Facts
- We provide immunosuppressive therapy
- We do not manage chronic pain
Publications
Research
The Rheumatology Department is actively involved with investigator-initiated research, with recent success. We are currently involved in a fully funded investigator-initiated basic science research project in conjunction with Virginia Tech, in which we are looking into the relationship between the gut microbiome and systemic lupus. The division is also involved in drug trials and drug studies, which has opened up various treatment opportunities for our patients. We also work with medical students and medical residents in various research projects, including retrospective chart-based studies and prospective research projects. Laboratory collaboration: Luo Lab: Xin M. Luo, Ph.D., Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Virginia Tech
Faculty
Faculty
Education
Overview
The Adult Rheumatology Training Program is central to the departmental mission and focus, and is closely integrated into our clinical and research programs. Our faculty are actively involved and provide a supportive yet self-affirming learning environment that allows fellows to interact with them at different stages of their academic journey.
The fellows are encouraged to take ownership of their learning but are closely guided by the faculty. Learning is clinical focused, keeping the attention on our patients. Clinical care is built on medical knowledge, supported by academia and research, allowing for growth of our learners.
Our learning environment is characterized by mutual respect, constructive feedback and a commitment to lifelong learning. Approved by the ACGME in June of 2019, our two-year program enrolls two trainees each year. This new program offers many advantages to our trainees, including the vast amount of pathology seen in our hospital and clinics and the very diverse urban, suburban and more rural communities. We meet
For more information, visit our Rheumatology Fellowship page by clicking here.
