- >> Message from the President
Dear members and friends:
First of all, I would like to thank my friends at the Taiwan College
of Rheumatology for giving me the opportunity to serve as the Chairman and lead this group of outstanding rheumatology experts and scholars from 2011 to 2014. For the past 29 years, the association has established a solid foundation that is still growing, thanks to the hard work of the Board Members and Supervisors. Due to the rapid advancement in immunology in recent years, we now have a deeper understanding of rheumatism and a greater arsenal of treatments to offer patients. In our field, the use of biological agents has also contributed greatly to the maturing of rheumatism research and improved our field’s competitiveness, both in the hospitals and in the medical community. However, despite this rapid advancement, there is still room for improvement in terms of patient service, education of the general public, and facilities for physicians. During my term as Chairman, I believe priority should be given to improving the following areas:
- Promote the rheumatism health education program by the Bureau of Health Promotion, so that patients can receive better care: According to Professor Yelin of the University of San Francisco, 2.9% of the USA’s GDP was spent on treating musculoskeletal disorders, representing a huge loss for the individual, society and the nation. This figure did not even take into account the costs associated with atherosclerosis, which has been recently discovered to be a highly prevalent complication of inflammatory arthritis.
Another study has discovered that, among US welfare recipients between the age of 18 and 64, 15% were unable to work due to arthritis, a number greater than heart disease and spine disease combined?. The data show the urgency of promoting health education for patients with rheumatism in our country. - Promote a reasonable policy of national health insurance payment for anti-CCP antibody for rheumatic arthritis, and the reasonable use of MMF in SLE patients. Anti-CCP antibody has become necessary to diagnose rheumatic arthritis. MMF is more effective against lupus than other treatments and it has no side effects, and the Bureau of National Health Insurance should allow the use of MMF for SLE.
- Establish a permanent address for the association.
- Promote TRA diagnosis guidelines for various diseases, such as the guidelines for the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis in patients with rheumatism and the guidelines for the use of biological agents in patients with hepatitis.
- Advocator for arthritis: including creating newsletters, lobbying parliament and the government, developing education for the general public, writing speeches for physicians in other fields, and promoting T2T and physician’s survey.
- Continue to support the rheumatology clinical registry of biological agents.
- Promote the internationalization of the association: establish an English website, provide travel rewards for young foreign scholars, and invite foreign clinical scholars to hold classes/seminars at various hospitals in Taiwan.
Wishing you good health and good luck.
President
Taiwan College of Rheumatology