Section of Pediatric Rheumatology

Thank you for visiting the website for the Section of Pediatric Rheumatology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Arkansas Children’s Northwest.

I am Dr. Stacie Jones, professor of pediatric allergy and immunology and interim chief of the Section of Pediatric Rheumatology. I joined UAMS and Arkansas Children’s Hospital in 1994 and was appointed as interim chief of pediatric rheumatology in 2020. Along with our institutional leaders, my colleagues and I are working collaboratively to build an exceptional academic team of pediatric rheumatology-trained specialists focused on the delivery of state-of-the-art clinical care, dedicated education and mentorship of trainees, and cutting-edge research as originally envisioned by Dr. Betty Lowe, the founding leader of our division.

We are well on our way to meeting our goals, with four board-certified pediatric rheumatologists, two pediatric rheumatology-trained advanced practice nurse providers and two specialty nurses in the division who work with our exceptional administrative and nursing staff at Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Arkansas Children’s Northwest to provide unprecedented care for the children of Arkansas. We are very excited to announce that we are actively recruiting a new division chief to lead this exceptional team.

Our Mission

We aspire to make a difference in the lives of every child and family we encounter while training the next generation of specialists in Pediatrics and in pediatric rheumatology and also providing a conduit of discovery through research initiatives leading to advancements in our field all ultimately leading to improving care of our patients in the future.

Clinical Services

Dr. Saumya Joshi treats a patient in the Rheumatology Clinic at Arkansas Children’s Hospital

Our pediatric rheumatology specialists provide personalized care, including both inpatient and outpatient services, to patients from infancy through age 21 years, with autoimmune and autoinflammatory disorders. Our clinics are located in Little Rock at ACH and in Springdale at ACNW through both in-person and telehealth visits.

Our board-certified specialists provide comprehensive evaluation and treatment for conditions including juvenile idiopathic arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, juvenile dermatomyositis, vasculitis syndromes including Henoch-Schoenlein purpura, Kawasaki Disease, ANCA-associated vasculitis, uveitis, systemic sclerosis, linear scleroderma, Raynaud Syndrome, autoinflammatory disorders including periodic fever syndrome, chronic recurrent multifocal osteomyelitis, mechanical disorders like joint hypermobility syndrome, hypermobile type Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, patellofemoral syndrome, overuse syndromes and pediatric fibromyalgia or amplified musculoskeletal pain syndrome among others.

We also attend multi-disciplinary clinics with colleagues from nephrology for vasculitis disorders and anesthesia for amplified pain syndrome and work collaboratively with providers in allergy/immunology, genetics, hematology/oncology, infectious disease, neurology, ophthalmology, and orthopedics, in particular, to evaluate and co-manage complex disease. Working in close partnership with referring physicians, advanced practice providers and collaborating teams, our Rheumatology specialists are committed to managing complex conditions and providing prompt feedback to referring primary care providers and other specialists.

Education and Mentoring

The Section of Pediatric Rheumatology has a long-standing legacy of providing education and training for medical students, pediatric and internal medicine residents, and fellows training in other pediatric specialties. Our plan is to extend our educational footprint through development of a rheumatology fellowship training program at UAMS and Arkansas Children’s Hospital in the coming years with the ultimate goal to inspire pediatric trainees to engage in a career in pediatric rheumatology, thereby enhancing the local and national workforce of specialists which will continue to advance and strengthen care for children with autoimmune and autoinflammatory disorders in Arkansas and the region.

Research

Our research program has historically focused on clinical case studies, observational studies and industry-sponsored clinical trials research. As part of our key mission for growth toward an exceptional academic pediatric rheumatology division, we have mapped a plan to expand our therapeutic clinical trials, to collaborate within our multi-disciplinary clinics to investigate how to enhance delivery of complex clinical care to high-risk populations, and to develop extramurally-funded translational research programs that address key mechanistic and therapeutic targets of disease.

Thank you again for visiting our site. I hope you enjoyed learning about our program. We look to the future of pediatric rheumatology as a program that will make vast contributions in academic medicine through meaningful initiatives in clinical care, education, research and advocacy that will ultimately result in the provision of exceptional care for the children and families we serve. Please continue browsing our site to learn more about our team and feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Stacie M. Jones, M.D., FAAP, FAAAAI
Professor of Pediatrics
Interim Section Chief of Pediatric Rheumatology
Fellowship Program Director, Allergy and Immunology