Biography

Dr. Bykerk is clinical Rheumatologist and researcher at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. She has worked for over 30 years in caring for and researching people with newly diagnosed RA. She is the founder and principal investigator of a multicenter long term observational North American early arthritis study examining the relationships between patients and physician measures, best practices and how to improve people’s outcomes. Dr. Bykerk received her training in medicine and epidemiology at McMaster University in Hamilton Canada. She was certified in internal medicine and rheumatology through the Royal College of Physicians in Canada after completing fellowships in Internal and Critical care medicine at the University of Toronto, and Rheumatology at McGill University. She has experience in community rheumatology practice, and has worked as a clinical research since 1999. She was the director of the early arthritis program at the University of Toronto as of 2003. In 2009, she moved to Boston where she worked as an attending at the Harvard affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She moved to the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York in 2011 where she is works as a clinical researcher, and is the director of the Inflammatory Arthritis Center of Excellence. She has participated in numerous national and international early and established RA studies (RCTs and observational) evaluating remission rates, their predictors, safety of newer therapies, comparative effectiveness, therapeutic care gaps and ability to withdraw therapy. She was the lead author of the Canadian Therapeutic Practice Recommendations on the effective and safe management of Rheumatoid Arthritis. She has co-led committees and organizations to facilitate early diagnosis and treatment in RA. She was one of the authors that recently revised the rheumatoid arthritis classification criteria. Dr. Bykerk is very interested in the patient’s experience of RA, as many learned from her New York Times Blog. She has been integrally involved in national and international collaborations to better understand the pathophysiology of RA. Also, she and her co-authors have recently published a new patient reported measure of flare called the RA-FQ (RA Flare Questionnaire) She remains dedicated to improving the quality of life of patients with RA, ideally by early intervention and even prevention.

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