The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
The Ohio State Rheumatology Fellowship Program 2024
 
Ali Ajam, MBBS: Hello, my name is Ali Ajam, and I am the Program Director here at The Ohio State University Rheumatology Fellowship Program. Welcome.

I just want to give you a brief overview of the program. We've got three fellows each year. It's a two year fellowship program and 
there's an option to do a third year as well if you want to subspecialize in vasculitis, for instance.

We've had a couple of fellows over the last five years who have chosen to stay on and do an additional year if they want to.

We've got a lot of diverse faculty here in the program. We've got thirteen clinical faculty at this point, and we've recruited three more.
They will be joining us in the next three months, so we'll have a total of sixteen clinical faculty. And then, in addition to that we've got three research faculty as well.

I hope you get to learn a little more about the program. I know the fellows are going to be speaking to you guys, so I wish you the best of luck, thank you.

Cristina Hurley, MD: Hi, I'm Cristina Hurley, I'm one of the second year fellows here at OSU in Rheumatology and I wanted to talk a little 
bit today about the difference in the first and second year.

First year of fellowship has a slightly lower clinical load which is really helpful for having some extra time to get the baseline foundational
knowledge that everybody needs when they start a fellowship, so there's a little more time for studying while also working with patients and to get 
some research projects underway because fellowship is such a short time that having a little bit more flexibility early on is great for getting those projects going.

Karthik Kovuru, MD: I think the training we get here is excellent. I think it trains you well for a wide variety of settings whether you want to go into an 
academic career or a private practice career. We have an exposure to a wide range of settings, we have outpatient clinics that we have four to five days, half days, a week.

And then inpatient consults. But we also have dedicated clinics for each subspecialty.

We have scleroderma clinic, a vasculitis clinic, a lupus clinic as well that you rotate through, and if you have any interests in derm or otho-adjacent conditions, 
then you can also rotate in some of those clinics as well.

I think the exposure to pathology here is excellent.

Jasmine Thai, MD: Hi I'm Jasmine, I'm one of the second year rheumatology fellows and I'm excited to start my career at Ohio State next year.
I think Ohio State is a great place to build your career, we have a variety of subspecialties and expertise in those areas, and we see a variety and large range of complex rheumatologic disease.

I have a specific interest in musculo-skeletal ultrasound and Ohio State has been nothing but supportive in helping me pursue this goal including letting me do US Sonar my first year.

I've been here five years for residency and fellowship and have always felt supported, so I'm excited to join the faculty here.

Dr. Kovuru: I like puzzles. I think rheumatology is a very engaging field that often requires you to be a detective, and you know even some of our bread and butter conditions can present in so many different ways.

I think the field itself is very engaging in everyday. And in addition to that, I really enjoy the relationship with the patient, 
and I think rheumatology allows you to have a long term established connection with the patient, you follow them long term and really develop that.

Both of those reasons are why I chose rheumatology.

Dr. Hurley: In the second year, we have an extra clinic half day per week, and that has helped me feel like I am getting ready to go straight into clinical practice afterwards, 
so I have enough volume and enough experience with managing those patients, and I'll be ready to go after my graduation.

Jisna Paul, MBBS: Me and my husband moved to Columbus, to Ohio State, in 2019. We have three girls. I have to say that we have found Columbus as a great city to bring up children.
We are really happy with the schools here. My children go to the Dublin city schools. We are doing really well, the school offers a lot of extracurricular opportunities.

Columbus also has a lot of good libraries, a lot of parks situated in various parts of the city.

Dr. Kovuru: It's been about a year since I've lived in Columbus and there's a lot of reasons to love Columbus. One word I'll say is food.
I think the amount of different types of restaurants and a lot of different foods that are available in Columbus and around the city is a wide variety and I really enjoy kind of eating my way through the town.

Ultimately, when I came here to OSU, I really found that I made the right choice.

Dr. Ajam: There are a lot of things that set Ohio State apart from other programs, but really the most important thing, I've been here two years, 
I've been the program director at this university for two years, and the best thing about the program are the people we have, the fellows that we have.
We've been fortunate at being able to recruit really good fellows, and you can get a sense from the fellows.
The demeanor that they have, I think the texture they provide, the texture and the ambiance of the program, which I think is special.

I hope we get to see some of you here at The Ohio State University, I wish you the best of luck, feel free to reach out if you have any questions, thank you.