MEF Program Summary

• Rheumatology training course [Catalan] [Spanish]
• Conogram of rheumatology rotations

The specialty

Rheumatology is the medical specialty responsible for the study of the medical pathology of the musculoskeletal system, ie the set of diseases that are predominantly manifested in bones, joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments, which are not consequence of a trauma.

It is a very broad specialty, which includes the study of more than 200 diseases, including inflammatory joint diseases (rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, gout ...), osteoarthritis, bone metabolic diseases (osteoporosis, osteomalacia, Paget's disease ...), systemic diseases (systemic lupus erythematosus, scleroderma, Sjögren's syndrome, polymyositis, vasculitis ...), and soft tissue rheumatism (tendinitis, bursitis, entrapment syndromes nervous ...).

Service Description

The Rheumatology Service of Sabadell Hospital began its activity in 1991. It offers specialized care to patients with rheumatic, locomotor and systemic autoimmune diseases.

The Service has spaces for outpatient consultation, conventional hospitalization, day hospital and technical office for the practice of diagnostic and therapeutic techniques of the specialty such as ultrasound, capillaryoscopy, microscopic study of crystals and biopsies of various locations (salivary gland, muscle, subcutaneous and synovial fat).

Service Structure

• Outpatient consultation. It is organized in two different levels of care that act in a complementary way and carried out by the same professionals:
  • Outpatient consultation at the Hospital. Here, the patient who is most complex or who requires evolutionary control is controlled, both for bone metabolic disease and for inflammatory rheumatism or for autoimmune systemic disease. Different specialized monographic consultations are used:
    • Rheumatoid arthritis.
    • Onset arthritis.
    • Spondyloarthropathies.
    • Bone metabolic disease.
    • Osteoarthritis.
    • Autoimmune systemic disease.
    • Control of subcutaneous drugs for hospital use (biological).
  • Interdisciplinary consultations are also used, shared with other professionals:
    • Psoriatic disease consultation (shared with the Dermatology Service).
    • Consult inflammatory bowel disease (shared with the Digestive Service).
    • Consult Uveitis (shared with the Ophthalmology Service).
    • Lung and rheumatic disease consultation (shared with the Pneumology Service).
    • Consult surgery in rheumatic disease (shared with the Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology Service).
    • Consult with supportive Geriatrics
    • Consult metabolic bone disease in endocrinopathies (shared with the Endocrinology and Nutrition Service)
    • Consultation in Specialized Care Centers, CAE de Sabadell and CAE de Cerdanyola - Ripollet: The consultation is organized as a standard external consultation and monographic infiltration consultation. Less complex pathology is treated, localized rheumatic processes or those that will not require continuous control.
    • It is done too face-to-face consulting in all Primary Care centers (usually monthly), where we are consulted about doubts related to rheumatic pathology (diagnostic, therapeutic, radiological imaging questions ...).
• Day hospital. The Day Hospital that uses the Service is specific and is located in the field of outpatient consultation. It allows the practice of biopsies and intravenous treatments of different diseases on an outpatient basis.
• Hospitalization. It is performed in the acute hospitalization area, in a plant shared with the Digestive, Hepatology and Neurology services.
• Technical office. The technical office used is for own use, located in the area of ​​the outpatient clinic. It is equipped with capillaryoscope, polarized light microscope, ultrasound and biopsy and infiltration material.

Professionals

The Service consists of a team of 12 rheumatologists, 4 residents (one resident per year), a nursing team with 4 professionals, and a Clinical Trials Unit (4 people). The 12 rheumatologists are distributed in the following Care and Research Units:

• Arthritis Unit
• Spondyloarthritis unit
• Bone Metabolism Unit
• Osteoarthritis Unit
• Systemic Diseases Unit
• Clinical Trials Unit