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News Releases
Gnatz Wants to Increase MARRTC's Profile
Columbia, Mo. (October 1999) - The Betty Ford Clinic needs little introduction.
Then there's the Mayo Clinic.
But few know about the country's only center dedicated to arthritis rehabilitation research and training -- the Missouri Arthritis Rehabilitation Research and Training Center -- MARRTC.
Dr. Steve Gnatz wants to reverse MARRTC's low profile. He believes his new post within a national physician's association will help him spread the word about MARRTC.
Gnatz is a co-principal investigator for MARRTC, overseeing the center's fiscal and administration functions.
He is also a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician or a physiatrist (pronounced fizz ee at` trists). He is the chairman of the University of Missouri's Department of PM&R, a professor of clinical PM&R, and the medical director of Rusk Rehabilitation Center.
Along with those roles, Gnatz is the new chairman of the program planning subcommittee for the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
The AAPM&R is the nation's core association for approximately 5,700 board-certified physical medicine and rehabilitation physicians.
The subcommittee plans the group's annual meeting, which gathers about 2,500 doctors each fall. The event is a four-day extravaganza of educational activities and research presentations.
"It's made to order for educating and disseminating information among people in the field (of rehabilitation), Gnatz said.
Physiatrists, Gnatz said, are dedicated to increasing function and decreasing pain for people with disabilities.
Their role, he believes, matches well with MARRTC's mission.
Since 1978, MARRTC has researched the best rehabilitation methods to prevent or minimize disabilities caused by arthritis. The center, which is funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research of the U.S. Dept. of Education, also provides training to health-care professionals on those methods.
One result of MARRTC's past research and training efforts is to challenge former ideas about exercise and arthritis, Gnatz explained.
MARRTC researcher Marian A. Minor, P.T., Ph.D., helped pioneer the practice that exercise helps persons with arthritis maintain and improve their mobility, Gnatz said. Before Minor's work, the usual prescription for arthritis was rest.
Since taking the three-year post with the Academy the fall of 1998, Gnatz has planned and organized the 35 to 40 workshops and 70 to 80 courses slated for the group's convention. The event will be held November 11-14, 1999, at the Washington Hilton & Towers in Washington, DC. This year's meeting will be held in conjunction with the 13th World Congress of the International Federation of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (IFPMR).
According to AAPM&R's website, http://www.aapmr.org, more than 2,500 physiatrists and allied health-care professionals will attend this year's convention.
"The AAPM&R Annual Assembly is already the largest annual gathering of physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) professionals. It provides the most continuing medical education opportunities in one location for PM&R specialists," reports the AAPM&R on its website.
In 2000, Gnatz wants part of that continuing education to come from MARRTC.
"We're the only rehabilitation research training center in arthritis in the United States," Gnatz said. Other centers are dedicated to rehabilitation or research, he said, but none are like MARRTC, dedicated to finding the best methods of rehabilitation and training people to use them.
That's why Gnatz wants to get the word out about MARRTC. He looks forward to the time when patients, family members, researchers and doctors with arthritis-related questions will turn to MARRTC.
"I think we should be accepting the role of leadership in rehabilitation research and training," Gnatz said. "We're not completely unknown, but I think we've been a well-kept secret."
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