Honey Agar Fellowship

Most lupus patients are women who are diagnosed between the ages of 15 and 45, their childbearing years. Pregnancy poses multiple potentially serious risks for lupus patients. The Fellowship is named for the founder of Lupus Ontario, Honey Agar, who passed away in 2023. This Fellowship is unique in Canada, dealing with this highly specialized subject and taking full advantage of multidisciplinary faculty expertise in the management of a diverse and substantive patient population. Based in Toronto, it is a city-wide program incorporating Mount Sinai Hospital, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and St. Michael’s Hospital allowing Fellows in this program to gain a broad exposure to the medical and obstetric management of pregnancy in rheumatic disease patients. This Fellowship has been approved by the Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology at the University of Toronto for the three major teaching hospitals noted above.

Goal of The Fellowship: to train a rheumatologist to have the knowledge and skills to provide consultant level care when assessing and managing pregnancy (and related issues) in patients with rheumatic diseases.

Objectives of the Fellowship

•   Develop an approach to discussing family planning with women, men and couples.
•   Learn to assess a patient with an underlying rheumatic disease and determine the factors that relatively or absolutely contraindicate a pregnancy.
•   Determine male factors impacting a decision regarding a pregnancy.
•   Learn the details of medications that are safe, contraindicated or how to modify such drugs in pregnancy.
•  To acquire the knowledge and clinical expertise to medically manage a pregnancy in a woman with an underlying rheumatic disease.