Ignorance of rheumatism

Press, 18 October 1976, Page 4

Ignorance of rheumatism

PA Auckland. Most general practitioners knew only a little about rheumatism and tended to sweep the world’s most widespread, costly and disabling disease “under the carpet” a visiting overseas expert said in Auckland. Dr R. G. Robinson, of Sydney, the president-elect of the International League against Rheumatism, said that such failings were not the fault of the general practitioners. He blamed instead an inadequate medical education system which did not devote enough time to rheumatism in training. “About 10-14 per cent of the complaints directed to general practitioners concern rheumatism," said Dr Robinson, “but there is no way that a doctor gets 10-14 per cent of his training devoted to rheumatism.” The rheumatic diseases included a wide range of sometimes crippling disorders involving muscles, tendons and fibrous tis-

sues, inflammatory arthritis, osteo-arthritis, back and neck troubles and painful conditions of the soft tissues of the body, said Dr Robinson. Two sentences should be banned from medical usage, he said. One was: “You have arthritis and thre is nothing that can be done,” and the other was: “You have arthritis and you will have to learn to live with it.”

The first was quite wrong, he said, and the second showed the defeatism of some general practitioners with a lack of knowledge on the subject.

“And it is human nature to tend to sweep things under the carpet when faced with a problem that you should know the answer to but don’t,” he said.

But if general practitioners were poorly educated, the public was also badly informed, said Dr Robinson.

Next year was world rheumatism year and one of the objectives was to

better inform and educate the populace. The misconception was that arthritis was an old people’s disease and that it was incurable.

A proportion failed to respond to therapy and the disease struck people of all ages: even infants, but with proper treatment some cases could be cured. He advocated the formation of a chair of rheumatology at Auckland University — and more chairs or similar units at other universities — that would combine the teaching of qualifying doctors with postgraduate work and a practical programme of clinical research. He was also in favour of rheumatology wards in hospitals or at least some specialised units where the disease could Le treated and studied. A mobile rheumatology clinic (which works along the same lines as the mobile chest and heart clinics in New Zealand) was run in Australia, he said, and

would be a good idea in this country.

“We should be looking at those who are cured, to learn from these successes and apply this information to a more efficient, control programme so that the numbers of those who are affected are reduced continuously,” he said.

The incidence of the disease was increasing —. and had been linked to the spread of urbanisation with its greater infection risk and its sometimes low economic standards.

Sport — particularly contact sports such as rugby were also a cause of some rheumatic diseases in later life. The knocks taken in sport had to be given time to heal. Although the pressures were great on footballers and other sportsmen to play again as soon as possible, he appealed to them to wait as long as possible before risking serious injury — which perhaps would not show up until later in life.