Looking back and looking ahead. Five years of the american college of rheumatology

✍ Scribed by Robert F. Meenan

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 621 KB
• Volume: 35
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0004-3591
• DOI: 10.1002/art.1780350302

✦ Synopsis

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the American College of Rheumatology as an independent organization. I would like to use the occasion of this 1991 ACR Presidential Address to look at what the College has accomplished in the past five years, to take stock of its current status as a professional association, and to point out the main issues that I think the ACR must address during the next five years.

From July I, 1965 until January I , 1986, the American Rheumatism Association operated as a section of the Arthritis Foundation. By the mid-I980s, however, it became clear that the ARA needed more freedom and flexibility, and so it was decided that the ARA should separate from the Arthritis Foundation. A formal agreement to that effect was drawn up, add the ARA became a separate and independent entity on January 1, 1986.

Many of you recall that this was a time of some consternation (Table 1). The most obvious concem for the new ARA was: Can we do it? Can the ARA really survive, never mind thrive, as an independent oqanization. This pessimism was fed by other attitudes that