Thieves’ Market showcases challenging and unusual cases


Seth Berney, MD
Seth Berney, MD

Always a popular session, the annual Thieves’ Market: Show Me Your Best Cases features the presentation of a variety of fascinating, mysterious, and uncommon clinical rheumatology cases and the opportunity for attendees to compare their diagnostic and management strategies to those of the presenter as well as their fellow rheumatologists. This year’s Thieves’ Market will be held from 4:30 – 6:00 pm Monday in Room 20 A.

“A huge number of really great cases were submitted for this year’s program,” said session co-moderator Seth Berney, MD, of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. “We narrowed it down to six cases for oral presentation during the session and more than a dozen others for poster presentations. Each case has one or more clinical teaching points that everybody should find interesting and helpful for their practices.”

Joining Dr. Berney as session co-moderators are Grant Hughes, MD, of the University of Washington, and Mathilde H. Pioro, MD, of the Veteran Affairs Administration and Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

Dr. Berney said that besides looking for the most interesting and challenging cases, the selection committee also sought to include a variety of cases that would appeal to younger rheumatologists as well as advanced clinicians.

“This is going to be an energetic, interactive session and we have a compelling lineup of cases that I think are going to really engage everybody,” he said.

Session attendees will be given an audience response handset and, at various points in each case presentation the presenter will pose questions to the audience. Potential questions might be about the choice of which diagnostic test to order, what potential therapy to initiate, or what the specific diagnosis might be.

“After each question, attendees select the multiple choice answer they think is best and then get to see how their decision compares to that of their colleagues in the audience as well as what was done in the actual case,” Dr. Berney said. “This is always a fun session and not only is it a great opportunity to hear about some very unusual cases, but it’s also a chance to test your intuition and decision-making in rare or challenging circumstances.”