On Tuesday, Nov. 9, during the annual ACR Business Meeting, Kenneth G. Saag, MD, MSc, became the 85th ACR President. Additionally, current ACR/Foundation Treasurer Douglas White, MD, PhD, became ACR President-Elect, and Carol Langford, MD, MHS, became the new ACR/Foundation Treasurer.
Kenneth G. Saag, MD, MSc, ACR President
Dr. Saag is Professor of Medicine and holds the Jane Knight Lowe Endowed Chair in the Division and the Department of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). He became Division Director of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology in July 2020. His research focuses on comparative effectiveness and safety of therapeutics as well as methods to improve quality of care in gout and osteoporosis. He is also Director of the UAB Comprehensive Arthritis, Musculoskeletal, Bone, and Autoimmunity Center. He has been a practicing physician with UAB Medicine and a researcher in the UAB School of Medicine since 1998.
Dr. Saag is past President of the National Osteoporosis Foundation Board of Trustees, the only rheumatologist to hold that position. He served UAB as Director, Center for Outcomes, Effectiveness Research and Education from 2009–2020. He directs the Center of Research Translation in Gout and Hyperuricemia and was the founding Director of the UAB AHRQ-funded Center for Education and Research on Musculoskeletal Disorders. An elected member of the American Association of Physicians, he has first-authored three original articles in The New England Journal of Medicine on treatment of GIOP and on fracture prevention in women with osteoporosis, as well as over 400 other original articles.
Trained as an engineer at the University of Michigan, Dr. Saag received his MD from Northwestern University and MSc in epidemiology from the University of Iowa. As a medical resident at Evanston Hospital, he was recognized as Outstanding Intern of the Year and as Chief Resident. He completed his fellowship in rheumatology at the University of Iowa. He served as Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa under Dr. Robert Ashman before joining UAB under the leadership of Drs. William Koopman and Robert Kimberly.
ACR Board of Directors, 2021–2022
Officers
President: Kenneth G. Saag, MD, MSc
President-Elect: Douglas W. White, MD, PhD
Secretary: Deborah Dyett Desir, MD
Treasurer: Carol Langford, MD, MHS
Rheumatology Research Foundation President: V. Michael Holers, MD
ARP President: Barbara Slusher, PA-C, MSW
Members
Anne Bass, MD
Marcy Bolster, MD
Sean Fahey, MD
Norman Gaylis, MD, MACR
Jane Kang, MD, MS
Bharat Kumar, MD, MMed
Sam Lim, MD, MPH
Amanda Myers, MD
Tamar Rubinstein, MD, MS
Eric Ruderman, MD
John Varga, MD, MACR
Swamy Venuturupalli, MD
Angus Worthing, MD
Douglas W. White, MD, PhD, ACR President-Elect
Dr. White earned his MD and PhD from the University of Iowa, followed by residency training in internal medicine at Parkland Hospital (UT-Southwestern) and fellowship training in rheumatology at Barnes-Jewish Hospital (Washington University in St. Louis). His PhD focused on effector functions of CD8 T cells and postdoctoral training on herpesvirus interactions with the host immune system.
In 2009, he became Chair of Rheumatology and head of the Rheumatology Research lab at Gundersen Health System in Wisconsin. He is Clinical Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and President-Elect of the ACR, where he has served in a number of roles since 2011. He also serves on the board of directors of the Local Lupus Alliance.
Deborah Dyett Desir, MD, ACR/Foundation Secretary
Dr. Desir is a graduate of Harvard University (cum laude) and Yale University School of Medicine (cum laude, AOA). She completed residency in internal medicine at Yale-New Haven Hospital and fellowship in rheumatology at Yale University School of Medicine. She is founder of the Arthritis and Osteoporosis Center, PC, in Hamden, Branford, and Milford, CT, and served as its medical director for 26 years. She is currently Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine in the Department of Medicine, Section of Rheumatology, Allergy & Immunology, Yale School of Medicine, and Medical Director of Yale Medicine Rheumatology, Hamden.
Dr. Desir has served as ACR Alternate Advisor to the AMA RUC Committee. She was a member of the ACR Government Affairs Committee, Committee on Rheumatologic Care, RheumPAC, and Finance Committee. She was a member of the State of Connecticut Partnership Advisory Panel on Lupus. She has served on the Ethics & Judicial Affairs Committee of the New Haven County Medical Association. She is on the Finance & Legislative Committees for the Connecticut State Medical Society (CSMS) and served as CSMS Council representative from the Elizabeth Blackwell Women’s Section. She is a past President of the New Haven County Medical Association.
Dr. Desir is active with the Theta Epsilon Omega chapter of AKA Sorority, heading up the chapter’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Committee. She is a member of the New Haven Chapter of The Links, Inc., the New Haven Chapter of Girlfriends, Inc., the Garden Club of New Haven, and the Board of Directors of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas. She is a member of the Garden Club of America’s Ad Hoc Committee on Cultivating Common Ground and Building Diversity. She currently serves on the Police Commission for the Town of Woodbridge, CT, along with the Democratic Town Committee. She is a member of Trinity Episcopal Church on the Green in New Haven, CT.
She is the wife of Dr. Gary Desir and the daughter of the late Dr. Benjamin I. Dyett and Mrs. Betty M. Dyett. She is the mother of Carl (Piper), Matthew (Cortni), Chrysanthemum (Camille Seaberry), and Alexandra (Maurice Clarke), and the grandmother of Elodie and Amari.
Carol Langford, MD, MHS, ACR/Foundation Treasurer
Dr. Langford received her MD at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1987 and trained in internal medicine at the University of Michigan from 1987–1990. She was a fellow in rheumatology at Duke University from 1990–1994, where she also received an MHS in 1995.
From 1994–2004, Dr. Langford was senior investigator within the Immunologic Diseases Section of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, where her research focused on vasculitis.
In 2004, Dr. Langford joined Cleveland Clinic to become Director of the Center for Vasculitis Care and Research within the Department of Rheumatic and Immunologic Diseases. She is Professor of Medicine of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and was named Vice-Chair of Rheumatology for Research in 2007. In 2011, she became the Harold C. Schott endowed Chair in Rheumatic and Immunologic Diseases.
At Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Langford’s work has continued to focus on patient care, education, and research in vasculitis. She has served as principal investigator for randomized trials in granulomatosis with polyangiitis, giant cell arteritis, and Takayasu arteritis. From 2000–2005, she was Associate Editor for Arthritis & Rheumatology. Dr. Langford also serves as Associate Editor to Dr. Anthony Fauci for Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine.
Throughout her career, Dr. Langford has been actively involved with the ACR. She was Clinical Abstract Chair for the Annual Meeting, was part of the ACR team involved in developing tools directed toward Maintenance of Certification that sought to advance the educational goals of rheumatologists, and served as Chair of the Committee on Education and most recently, on the ACR Board of Directors.
ACR CONVERGENCE ON DEMAND
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