Arthritis Foundation Awards Grants to Bolster Arthritis Care 

By Vandana Suresh | July 28, 2026 

The rheumatology workforce shortage continues to adversely affect care for patients with arthritis, and this deficit is expected to grow in the coming years. To augment workforce solutions, the Arthritis Foundation, through its Clinical Rheumatology Fellowship Program, has awarded grants to support rheumatology fellowship programs at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and the University of California, San Francisco. 

“As the demand for rheumatology care continues to outpace the available workforce, supporting the training of future rheumatologists has never been more important,” says Steve Taylor, Arthritis Foundation president and CEO. “These fellowships help cultivate talented physicians who will lead the field forward through clinical excellence, research innovation and a commitment to improving the lives of people with arthritis.” 

The goals of the 2026 Arthritis Foundation Rheumatology Clinical Fellowship Program are twofold: (1) To reduce workforce barriers to care that threaten critical access to state-of-the-art rheumatology care for all children and adults with arthritis, and (2) To support early-in-career physicians who are committed to improving the lives of people with arthritis outside of the clinic by engaging with the arthritis community, particularly where those communities have limited access to rheumatological care. 

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Pediatric Rheumatology Fellowship, the only training program in southeastern Pennsylvania and a major referral center for the mid-Atlantic, serves a diverse population, with 24% of local patients covered by Medicaid. Further, the training program addresses health disparities and social determinants of health and includes specific curricula on implicit bias and mental health. 

Likewise, with the Foundation’s support, Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago will provide unique training opportunities in telemedicine, transition medicine, community advocacy, quality improvement, mental health, musculoskeletal ultrasound and biorepository research, among other areas.  

The support from the Arthritis Foundation has been critical in the development of the Internal Medicine-Pediatrics (Med-Peds) curriculum and expansion of transition resources at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). The Med-Peds Rheumatology Fellowship Program’s goals include developing rheumatologists who are experts in the care of children and adults. Fellows trained under this program will have the opportunity to serve the patient population across four clinical systems: UCSF Health, the San Francisco VA Health Care System, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland.   

“Investing in the next generation of rheumatologists is essential to improving access to care and advancing outcomes for people with arthritis. These fellowship programs provide critical training opportunities that will help shape the future of rheumatology,” says Paul Larkin, PhD, vice president of science at the Foundation.