LUPUS SUPPORT GROUP - Western JA

Dr Megan Bowles Clowse

Key Note Speaker

Megan Elizabeth Bowles Clowse, MD, MPH

Associate Professor,Duke University, Faculty of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology

Dr. Clowse is a clinical rheumatologist with a long-standing research interest in understanding the real-world problems rheumatic diseases pose for our patients and identifying innovative approaches to solving these. She received her medical degree from Vanderbilt Medical School, followed by residency and fellowship at Johns Hopkins.  She joined the Duke faculty in 2005.

She is an international leader in the study and management of rheumatic diseases in pregnancy. She has cared for over 900 pregnancies in women with rheumatic disease since initiating her prospective pregnancy registry in 2008. She was on the Core Leadership team for the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Reproductive Health Guidelines. Through quantitative and qualitative work, she identified gaps in rheumatologists’ knowledge and communication skills as key drivers of poor pregnancy outcomes in women with lupus. To overcome these, she has created an in-clinic intervention and program to enable rheumatologists to provide effective pregnancy planning and management to women with lupus (LupusPregnancy.org).