Maria Parham Welcomes Rheumatologist to Medical Staff
1/28/2010
Maria Parham Medical Center is pleased to welcome Joseph Shanahan, MD and congratulate him on the opening of Shanahan Rheumatology & Immunotherapy here in Henderson. Dr. Shanahan will begin seeing patients on February 1st, 2010.
Dr. Shanahan will share office space with Kerr Lake Orthopaedics, located in the Medical Office Plaza behind the hospital. Dr. Shanahan’s primary location is in Raleigh. Initially, Shanahan Rheumatology & Immunotherapy will have limited hours here in Henderson, but the doctor hopes to increase his time in Henderson as the practices builds.
Dr. Shanahan is dually Board Certified in Internal Medicine as well as Rheumatology by the American Board of Internal Medicine. A patient may be referred to him, or they may elect to see him directly – appointments are required. It is important to check your insurance plan to see if you require a referral from your family physician.
A Rheumatologist is a physician specially trained to diagnose and treat arthritis and other diseases of the joints, muscles and bones. There are more than 100 types of these diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, gout, lupus, back pain, osteoporosis, fibromyalgia and tendonitis. Some of these are very serious diseases that can be difficult to diagnose and treat.
Dr. Shanahan is a native of Haddonfield, New Jersey, a suburb of Philadelphia. He majored in biology at the prestigious Brown University. He then attended the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) where his interest in rheumatology was sparked. During this time, Dr. Shanahan was recognized as the top medical student in the Department of Medicine and was named to the medical honor society. He completed all of his post-graduate training at Duke University, finishing his Rheumatology fellowship in 2002. He has spent time on the faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where he served as Assistant Director of the Arthritic Clinical Intervention Program. Dr. Shanahan returned to RWJMS as Assistant Professor of Rheumatology before he was recruited back to Duke University. There he developed both the Duke Lupus Clinic and the Duke Scleroderma Research Center.
As Associate Director of the Duke Lupus Clinic, Dr. Shanahan was integral to the development of the Duke Lupus Database and Repository and the clinical research program. The creation and subsequent growth of the Duke Scleroderma Research Center, for which Dr. Shanahan served as clinical director, established one of the largest clinics of its kind in the Southeast, in addition to conducting ground-breaking clinical and translational research. Dr. Shanahan continues to serve as Assistant Consulting Professor in Medicine at Duke University.
Shanahan Rheumatology & Immunotherapy will set the standard in clinical care, in addition to providing access to clinical trials of new and emerging treatments and diagnostic technologies. The practice will continue academic collaborations that explore the nature and behavior of these diseases. His goal for Shanahan Rheumatology and Immunotherapy is to develop a center for the clinical management of autoimmune and autoinflammatory diseases, especially lupus, scleroderma and Raynaud’s phenomenon, myositis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Since Dr. Shanahan remains engaged in medical education, patients at Shanahan Rheumatology & Immunotherapy may occasionally meet trainees including both medical students and residents.
Shanahan Rheumatology & Immunotherapy’s Henderson location is in the Medical Office Plaza, behind Maria Parham Medical Center. The address is 120 Charles Rollins Road, Suite 205. His office may be reached by dialing (252) 436-1655. Calls made to this number will be forwarded to Dr. Shanahan’s office in Raleigh.