Dr. O’Dell has not regretted his decision to become a rheumatologist. He still recalls clearly some of the patients he met during his fellowship at the University of Colorado and what they taught him about the specialty. One such patient was "[a] delightful elderly gentleman from Bolivia who had just come to Denver to live with his daughter. He suffered greatly from what had been diagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis but what was really chronic gout. When we figured this out and got him on the right therapy, it was, at least to him, a miracle," recalled Dr. O’Dell.
"I remember many of my heroic RA patients who suffered greatly from their disease without much in the way of complaints at a time when we did not have much to offer them. These people and their unbelievably positive attitudes are a big reason why I have worked the last 30 years to help understand vastly superior ways to treat them," he said.
Research has long been an important priority for Dr. O’Dell. Among his research projects are studies that compare active treatments in patients whose RA remains active despite methotrexate therapy; genetics of RA; treatment of early aggressive RA; and combination disease-modifying antirheumatic drug therapy for RA.
Dr. Arthur L. Weaver noted of Dr. O’Dell’s research: "He created and continues to manage the RAIN [Rheumatoid Arthritis Investigational Network], which is a unique research consortium of academic and practicing rheumatologists whose primary mission has been to answer everyday questions via investigator initiated research. The RAIN network was responsible for multiple innovative studies including the initial trial and subsequent worldwide prominence of ‘Triple Therapy,’ " said Dr. Weaver, who is clinical professor of medicine at the University of Nebraska and has known Dr. O’Dell since his days as chief resident at the University of Nebraska.
Dr. Kaplan, past president of ACR from 1993-1994, remembers that he mentioned Dr. O’Dell and the RAIN network during his presidential speech as a singular example of research that assessed data gathering from both academic and practice settings. "Most researchers do all one or all the other. [Dr. O’Dell] set the precedent of gathering data from both sources."
Installed as president of the American College of Rheumatology at the annual meeting in November, Dr. O’Dell has a long record of involvement with the ACR, serving in many leadership positions both within the college and its Research and Education Foundation (REF) for the past 20 years. He was president of the REF from 2005-2007, secretary of ACR in 2009, and ACR president-elect in 2011. He served as chair of Patient Giving for the REF’s Within Our Reach campaign, chair of the ACR Registry Task Force, and first chair of the ACR Registry and Health Information Technology Committee.
Some of his earlier committee leadership roles include serving as chair of the Annual Scientific Meeting Abstract Selection Committee in 1998 and 1999, serving on the committee that developed the ACR Guidelines for the Management of Rheumatoid Arthritis in 1996 and 2008, and serving on the Blue Ribbon Committee on Access to Care in 1999. Recently, Dr. O’Dell chaired the association’s Rheumatoid Arthritis Clinical Trial Investigators Ad Hoc Task Force, whose findings were published in the August 2011 issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism.
While he may have been the first physician in his family, Dr. O’Dell’s family is making medicine a family tradition. "[M]y younger brother is an academic general internist and educator at the U. of Nebraska (UNMC). I also now have a son-in-law who is an internist at UNMC, a nephew in residence at UNMC, and a daughter-in-law who is in her first year of medical school also at UNMC," he said.
Dr. O’Dell is not only a rheumatologist, he has been an arthritis patient. His two new knees attest to the fact that he has walked a mile in the shoes of patients with knee pain, and he has followed rheumatologic advice regarding exercise: "I swim 3 to 4 miles per week. I started this 30 years ago when I started having knee arthritis problems. Now even though I have two new knees, I still swim," he said.
When asked to imagine what he will be doing in 5 years, Dr. O’Dell imagines that he will be "[d]oing much the same things I’m doing now – teaching and working to find better ways to treat RA. Also I hope to slow down enough to enjoy my two grand children."