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PRESS RELEASE: GW Medical Student Receives American College of Rheumatology Research Education Foundation/Abbott Medical/Graduate Student Achievement Award

WASHINGTON – Kristina Demas, a second-year medical student at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences received the 2009 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Research Education Foundation (REF)/Abbott Medical/Graduate Student Achievement Award, earning a $750 scholarship and travel expenses to present her research at the Annual American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Conference in Philadelphia, PA, Oct. 16-19.

“Thanks to the generous support of the ACR and REF, I was able to hear from leading experts in rheumatology and to present timely research that I performed in collaboration with Dr. Karen Costenbader and Harvard Medical School that aims to enhance the quality of care and lives of lupus patients,” said Ms. Demas. “I firmly believe that creating a standard of care using a set of newly-developed Quality Indicators is a key step in eliminating persistent disparities in the treatment of lupus.”

At the ACR conference, Demas presented her research, titled "Assessing Care in SLE using Quality Indicators for Osteoporosis and Cardiovascular Disease" during an abstract poster session on Quality Measures and Innovations in Practice Management and Delivery of Care.

Demas’ interests lie in women’s health-related research and lupus and other autoimmune diseases. After graduating from Harvard College in 2008, she began performing clinical research in lupus at Harvard Medical School/ Brigham and Women's Department of Rheumatology under the supervision of Dr. Karen Costenbader, M.D., M.P.H..

Demas co-authored a review of the literature on “Disparities in Lupus Care and Outcomes,” which was recently published in Current Opinion in Rheumatology in March 2009. Her research was funded by the Lupus Foundation Summer Student Fellowship Award in 2008 and the GW Gill Fellowship in 2009.