Christy Sandborg, MD
Division of Pediatric Rheumatology,
Stanford Medical Center, Palo Alto, California
As a pediatric resident at Los Angeles Children's Hospital, I took care of many ill teenage lupus patients. In the late 70s, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) often led to renal failure, malignant hypertension and neuropsychiatric disease. Add to this the state of adolescence, which is normally associated with a thought disorder, and is best characterized as a developmental psychosis. We always had five or so terribly ill, difficult, noncompliant SLE patients on the adolescent floor. As an intern, pediatric rheumatology was the last thing on my mind.
During my second year of residency, I had to choose a two-week elective. I thought to myself, “I'll do pediatric rheumatology, because I would never want to do more than two weeks of that specialty.” However, during my elective, I recognized how the inpatient experience completely distorted my impression of this specialty. I found that the great majority of the specialty was outpatient care of ill children. I even saw adolescents with SLE as outpatients and found them to be wonderful pleasant kids who had been understandably scared and difficult during their hospitalization. I came to be fascinated by the effect of autoimmune disease on patients.
As a result, I chose pediatric rheumatology as my life career choice. I was, and still am, attracted to the pathophysiology and abundance of clinical findings. I enjoy the challenge of diagnostic dilemmas and trying to understand the pathophysiology of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. I like that there are so many therapeutic things I can do to make these children and teenagers feel better and function to the best of their ability. I especially enjoy taking care of children and adolescents with chronic disease, working with them and their families over many years. I find teaching young pediatricians and budding pediatric rheumatologists about pediatric rheumatology very rewarding, and I love taking what I learn in the clinic and applying it to research and laboratory studies and vice-versa—bedside to bench and bench to bedside.
I have never regretted my choice. I am amazed daily how the breakthroughs in our understanding of these diseases have led to amazingly improved outcomes for patients. And the future continues to be bright for all patients with these diseases—I want to do my part to bring the advances in therapy and diagnosis and prevention to my patients.
