Basement to beach: How the Congress of Clinical Rheumatology became a ‘premier meeting’

Purpose-built for physicians

The Congress of Clinical Rheumatology annual meetings have over the past 43 years grown from a few doctors in a basement in Alabama to a multinational presence that attracts biggest names in the field.

That success is largely the result of a lifetime commitment from its creators, David A. McLain, MD, MACR, FACP, FRCP, executive director of the Alabama Society for the Rheumatic Diseases and symposium director of the Congress of Clinical Rheumatology, and Pamela McLain, MD, FAAD, symposium coordinator at the Congress of Clinical Rheumatology.

“I consider this to be the premier meeting for clinical rheumatologists in the country,” Leonard H. Calabrese, DO, chief medical editor of Healio Rheumatology, professor of medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, and RJ Fasenmyer chair of clinical immunology at the Cleveland Clinic, told Healio.

“I base that statement on its track record, longevity and the doctors McLain, both David and Pam,” he added. “They have made a commitment that has served not only to educate clinicians but to propel the profession of rheumatology forward.”