There are moments in the clinic that stay with me. A patient sitting across from me, explaining symptoms that have been building quietly for years. Fatigue they couldn’t quite describe. Pain that moved from joint to joint. Days where their body simply didn’t cooperate. And almost always, somewhere in that story, there’s a gap. A gap between when symptoms started and when they were finally taken seriously. A gap between flare-ups and access to care. A gap between what they wer

Autoimmune diseases are often discussed in medical textbooks under immunology. But in reality, they belong just as prominently in conversations about women’s health. Nearly 80% of individuals living with autoimmune diseases are women. Conditions such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Sjögren's Syndrome, and Multiple Sclerosis disproportionately affect women, often during the most productive decades of their lives. A group of women engage in a lively conv

A patient sits down and begins to explain their symptoms, the pain, the stiffness, the fatigue. But very quickly, the conversation shifts, they start talking about their sleep. Their stress levels, work demands and the meals they’re skipping. The guilt they feel for slowing down and it becomes clear, what they’re experiencing cannot be understood by looking at their joints alone. In rheumatology, we are trained to diagnose and manage complex autoimmune diseases like Rheumatoi