ARTHRITIS & RHEUMATISM Vol. 60, No. 7, July 2009, pp 1881–1883 DOI 10.1002/art.24663 © 2009, American College of Rheumatology SPECIAL ARTICLE International Rheumatology Networking The 2008 American College of Rheumatology/European League Against Rheumatism Exchange Program Axel J. Hueber, 1 Jo ¨rg H. W. Distler, 2 and Ruth D. E. Fritsch-Stork 3 Herein, we summarize the unique exchange pro- gram between the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR). Having just participated in a round of ex- changes, we wanted to briefly share our impressions of the differences in the fellow systems in Europe and in the US. The 2008 exchange marked the 25th anniversary of such an international program; Dr. Roger Sturrock, Dr. Michael Doherty, Dr. David L. Scott, and Dr. Patrick Venables were the original 1983 European at- tendees in an exchange sponsored by the Arthritis Research Campaign, UK. In 1998, the ACR/EULAR exchange program was introduced to provide a forum for aspiring pediatric and adult rheumatology fellows. This program offered a bidirectional exchange of knowl- edge and experience, which could serve as a foundation for future friendship and international collaboration. Ten years later, the program continues to operate in its original format: every other year, 3 fellows from Europe attend the annual meeting of the ACR and visit 3 American rheumatology centers. In alternating years, American fellows attend the EULAR meeting and visit selected European centers. Over the last decade, the international network in rheumatology has evolved and has become more integrated; all 3 of us who were participating European fellows this year had previously spent time in immunology/rheumatology research in the US, a fact that reflect this close international relation- ship. 2008 site visits As the 3 European fellows invited by the ACR to participate in the 2008 exchange, we came from The Netherlands, Germany, and Great Britain. Excellent mentoring by Dr. Gabriel Panayi (London, UK) and Dr. Doyt Conn (Atlanta, GA) enabled us to interact with our American colleagues in a scientific setting as well as on a personal basis, increasing our knowledge about recent progress in all aspects of rheumatologic research and deepening our understanding of US society. At Grady Hospital in Atlanta, Dr. Conn and Dr. Sam Lim demonstrated health care methods and ways of identifying and organizing rheumatic disease patients, such as use of the Lupus Registry. Within the Division of Human Immunology at Emory University, also in At- lanta, scientific sessions chaired by Dr. Jo ¨rg Goronzy included talks by US and EULAR fellows. With sur- prise, we noted that clinical fellows (mostly at the Emory-associated Grady Hospital) were mainly engaged in clinical science, studying epidemiologic questions, compared with the basic science focus at Emory. How- ever, projects including the study of immune senescence using patient samples reflect the close link between clinics and laboratories, and we greatly appreciated the openness with which the newest data were shared and discussed. In the Division of Rheumatology at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York, an overview presented by Dr. Stephen Paget and Dr. Steven Gold- ring was followed by a discussion of research efforts dealing with changes in vasculature during immune responses (Dr. Theresa Lu), complement and pregnancy in systemic lupus erythematosus (Dr. Jane Salmon), osteoarthritis (Dr. Lisa Mandl), clinical scleroderma 1 Axel J. Hueber, MD: University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK; 2 Jo ¨rg H. W. Distler, MD: University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlan- gen, Germany; 3 Ruth D. E. Fritsch-Stork, MD: University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Axel J. Hueber, MD, Division of Immunology, Infection, and Inflammation, 120 University Place, Glasgow G12 8TA, UK. E-mail: a.hueber@ clinmed.gla.ac.uk. Submitted for publication March 19, 2009; accepted in revised form April 7, 2009. 1881