The Gout Education Society is comprised of an International Advisory Council, in addition to its Board of Directors. The International Advisory Council includes medical professionals from all over the world, both internationally and domestically, who specifically treat gout – the most common form of inflammatory arthritis. The Council members share our commitment to raising awareness about the growing number of patients with gout, and are dedicated to making sure more sufferers receive a proper diagnosis and ongoing, necessary treatment
Council members provide additional guidance to the efforts of The Gout Education Society.
The Gout Education Society 2024 International Advisory Council
Herbert S. B. Baraf, MD, FACP, MACR
Herbert S. B. Baraf, MD, FACP, MACR
Herbert S. B. Baraf, MD, FACP, MACR serves as a Special Volunteer at the National Institutes of Health in the National Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases and an International Advisory Council member for the Gout Education Society. He was a founder and leader of Arthritis and Rheumatism Associates (ARA), one of the largest private rheumatology practices in the United States until he retired mid 2022. He is Clinical Professor of Medicine at George Washington University in Washington, DC, and Associate Clinical Professor at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. Prior to leaving private practice he directed ARA’s clinical research unit, serving as principal investigator on over 400 clinical trials of treatment for gout, rheumatoid arthritis, Siogren’s syndrome and numerous other rheumatic disorders.
Through his work in clinical trials, Dr. Baraf is an authority on the role of enzymatic therapy in gout and in its safe and effective use. He has co-authored numerous manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals on gout and gout therapy.
Dr. Baraf has been an active member of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). His efforts were instrumental in the ACR’s commitment to the development of freestanding musculoskeletal ultrasound courses for rheumatologists. In recognition of his efforts for the College, Dr. Baraf was made a Master of the ACR. In 2014, he received the Paulding Phelps Award from the ACR for “outstanding service to patients, community, and the practice of medicine.” In 2022 he was honored with the “Innovation in Clinical Practice Award” by the College. He is also the inaugural recipient of the Dr Herbert S B Baraf, Excellence in Arthritis Care Award from the Metropolitan Washington chapter of the Arthritis Foundation.
Dr. Baraf’s medical degree was earned at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, College of Medicine in Brooklyn, New York. He completed his internship and residency at the George Washington University Hospital and his fellowship in rheumatic and genetic diseases at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.
Nicola Dalbeth, MBChB, MD, FRAC
Nicola Dalbeth, MBChB, MD, FRAC
Nicola Dalbeth is a rheumatologist and professor at The University of Auckland, leading a clinical and laboratory program of research in gout.
Professor Dalbeth’s work focuses primarily on understanding the impact and mechanisms of disease in gout. She was a founding member of the Counties Manukau District Health Board Māori Gout Action Group, and chairs the New Zealand Atlas of Healthcare Variation Gout Expert Advisory Group. She serves as member of the Core Leadership team for the 2019 American College of Rheumatology Gout Management Guidelines. She has also been a steering committee member for the OMERACT gout working group and the ACR/EULAR gout classification project. She has published extensively in the field of gout, including in the Lancet and BMJ.
She studied medicine at the University of Otago, New Zealand, and received post-fellowship training at the University of Oxford and the Imperial College London, UK.
Robert Keenan, MD
Robert Keenan, MD
Robert T. Keenan is a rheumatologist in Durham and Raleigh, North Carolina and is affiliated with Duke University Hospital. He is also an Associate Professor of Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine and Vice Chief of Clinical Affairs for the Division of Rheumatology.
He has authored and co-authored articles and book chapters on gout, including American Journal of Medicine, Annals of the Rheumatic Disease, and Kelley and Firestein’s Textbook of Rheumatology.
Dr. Keenan received his medical degree from St. George’s University School of Medicine, his master’s in public health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and master’s in business administration from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Ted R. Mikuls, MD, MSPH
Ted R. Mikuls, MD, MSPH
Dr. Mikuls is the Stokes-Shackleford Professor of Rheumatology in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC).
Dr. Mikuls completed both his medical school training and internal medicine residency at UNMC followed by his rheumatology fellowship training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) where he also received his Masters in Public Health. Dr. Mikuls joined the UNMC Rheumatology Division 2002 where he remains active in clinical-translational research, research mentoring, education, and patient care. He has directed the VA Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System Rheumatoid Arthritis clinic for the last 17 years and serves as the Principal Investigator of the national VA Rheumatoid Arthritis Registry (VARA). Dr. Mikuls also serves as the director of the Professional Development core for the NIH/NIGMS-funded Great Plains IDeA CTR.
Dr. Mikuls research efforts are focused on the epidemiology and health outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and gout. He has received research funding from the VA, NIH, Arthritis Foundation, the US Department of Defense, Industry, and the Rheumatology Research Foundation.
Fernando Pérez-Ruiz, MD, PhD
Fernando Pérez-Ruiz, MD, PhD
Fernando Pérez-Ruiz, MD, PhD, is a Consultant of the Rheumatology Division in Hospital Universitario Cruces, Head of the Investigation Group for Arthritis at Biocruces Health Research Institute, and Associated Professor of the Department of Medicine in School of Medicine and Nursery at the Basque Country University in Vizcaya, Spain
He has collaborated with the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) 2006 and 2016 recommendations for Gout management, the ACR Guidelines for gout 2012, the OMERACT special interest group for gout, and the T2T 2016 initiative for gout. He founded and coordinated the Crystal-induced Arthritis Study Group of the SER (Spanish Society for Rheumatology) and coordinates the SER-Guidelines for the management of gout and the ongoing update.
He has served for the last years as associated editor and editorial boards of several indexed journals and as an invited reviewer for more than 30 international journals. His research interests include crystal-induced arthritis, and especially gout, but has also investigated and published on calcium pyrophosphate dihydrate (CPPD), lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and fibromyalgia.
Dr. Pérez-Ruiz has delivered over 100 lectures, published 130 indexed articles and 20 book chapters, presenting over 250 scientific abstracts in rheumatology meetings on topics relating to diverse rheumatology diseases, but mostly gout, gathering a cumulated impact factor over 1,500, and h-index over 40.
He received his MD from Basque Country University and a PhD in from Barcelona University with a clinical investigation program on classification and treatment of hyperuricemia in gout. Board certified in Rheumatology after a fellowship at Hospital Ramón y Cajal in Madrid through qualifying in the national exam for specialty.
Pascal Richette, MD, PhD
Pascal Richette, MD, PhD
Pascal Richette is a professor and rheumatologist at the Hôpitaux de Paris.
Dr. Richette’s interests include osteoarthritis, rheumatic diseases, synovial fluid, and gout and crystal-induced arthropathies. He has been published in several journals, including Arthritis Research & Therapy and Arthritis Care and Research.
Jasvinder Singh, MD, MPH
Dr. Singh is a Rheumatologist for 20 years and an Outcomes Researcher with scientific interests in Quality of Life in patients with arthritis. He is interested in understanding and improving outcomes in patients with gout, osteoarthritis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and joint arthroplasty. He has been studying quality of life, quality of care and functional limitation in patients with gout and other rheumatic diseases. He conducts prospective studies, large administrative and clinical database studies, qualitative research and randomized trials of patient-centered behavioral and educational interventions. He has authored >500 peer-reviewed publications (or in press) or book chapters.
Lisa Stamp, MBChB, FRACP, PhD
Lisa Stamp, MBChB, FRACP, PhD
Dr. Stamp is a rheumatologist at Christchurch Public Hospital in New Zealand. She is also a professor of medicine at the University of Otago, Christchurch.
Dr. Stamp’s research interests include individualization of drug treatments in rheumatic conditions, including dosing of allopurinol and the role of oxypurinol concentrations in gout. She is the director of the Canterbury Rheumatology Immunology Research Group, and has been awarded an Early Career Research award and the Carl Smith Medal for research by the University of Otago. She has also been awarded The Arthritis New Zealand National Researcher Award.
Dr. Stamp completed her rheumatology training in New Zealand and Adelaide, and received her PhD at the University of Adelaide in Australia.
Michael H. Pillinger, MD, FACP
Michael H. Pillinger, MD, FACP
Dr. Michael Pillinger is Professor of Medicine, and Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, at New York University Grossman School of Medicine, where he directs TREC (Translational Research Education and Careers), the workforce and training unit of the NYU CTSI. In that context he serves as Director of the NYU Masters Program in Clinical Investigation, and as the PI of the NYU KL2 program. Dr. Pillinger is also the Director of Rheumatology Training at NYU, Director of the Crystal Disease Study Group, and Section Chief for Rheumatology at the Manhattan VA Hospital. Dr. Pillinger completed his undergraduate training at Harvard, his medical degree at NYU, his internal medicine residency at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and his rheumatology fellowship at NYU. His areas of clinical interest include gout and osteoarthritis, and his areas of scientific interest include inflammation, innate immunity and cell signaling. He has published more than 150 original research and review articles, editorials and book chapters. Among his honors are the American College of Rheumatology Clinician Scholar Educator and Distinguished Program Director Awards.
Puja P. Khanna, MD, MPH
Puja P. Khanna, MD, MPH
Dr. Khanna’s vision is to design patient and physician interventions that improve health outcomes in patients with rheumatic diseases such as gout, rheumatoid arthritis, and systemic sclerosis. Her longstanding interest in gout has led her to develop focused expertise in this field, and she has collaborated on several qualitative projects with various groups such as G-CAN, VA Crystal Registry, and OMERACT, an international collaborative effort on standardization of outcome measures in rheumatology. The American College of Rheumatology Foundation funded her to assess quality of life in gout in Veterans, that led to the identification of gaps in treatment and knowledge. Dr. Khanna was also a Co-Investigator on a study to develop and validate the GI-Symptoms Scale, and has been involved with development of gout guidelines and quality measures at national (ACR) and international levels (EULAR), and the latest guidelines on management of gout were published in May 2020. Her clinical research expertise lies in the design of therapeutic trials and patient-centric educational programs in gout.
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