Brian Walitt
PharmD
Brian Walitt, MD, MPH, is the Research Director and Associate Director of the Division of Rheumatology at MedStar Washington Hospital Center (MWHC) and is Associate Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center. Dr. Walitt also is Director of the Fibromyalgia Evaluation and Research Center at Georgetown. This center provides care to fibromyalgia patients and allows for the collection of prospective data and biologic samples for use by researchers.
Dr. Walitt is active in both clinical and investigative rheumatology and is currently President of the Rheumatism Society of the District of Columbia. His research focuses on fibromyalgia, other chronic pain disorders, and the epidemiology of rheumatic disease. He is a national expert on fibromyalgia syndrome and actively participates in fibromyalgia research groups, such as the National Databank for Rheumatic Disease; OMERACT: An International Initiative to Improve Outcome Measurement in Rheumatology; and the Cochrane Review, a collaboration dedicated to providing systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare interventions. He has performed several investigator-initiated studies in fibromyalgia using neuroimaging techniques, neuropsychological instruments, gene expression analysis, and cytokine profiles. In addition, he has been involved in several pharmaceutical trials for the treatment of fibromyalgia.
Dr. Walitt has published his research in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, as well as in various peer-reviewed rheumatology journals. Additionally, he serves as a reviewer for several journals, including the Journal of Gerontology, Arthritis Care and Research, and the Clinical Journal of Pain, as well as for the Cochrane Collaboration (Musculoskeletal Diseases).
He is a fellow of the American College of Rheumatology and a member of the American College of Physicians. Dr. Walitt has been awarded multiple honors at the local and national level in recognition of his research, including being chosen as a young investigator of the U.S. Bone and Joint Decade/Initiative and a Pfizer Pain Scholar. He is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology.
Dr. Walitt earned his medical degree at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, DC. He completed clinical and research fellowships in Rheumatology at MWHC and earned a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology at George Washington University.
Research Interests
Dr. Walitt's research interests include
-
Rheumatology
-
Fibromyalgia
-
Chronic pain disorders
-
Epidemiology of rheumatic disease
-
Arthritis
Selected Research
Dr. Walitt has active collaborations with research laboratories at Georgetown, the National Institutes of Health, and the University of North Carolina. An example of his projects is listed below.
Women's Health Initiative (WHI)
Dr. Walitt is a co-investigator on the WHI and provides oversight for the rheumatology special interest group of the WHI through a grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. His WHI collaborations have focused on a wide variety of topics, including pesticides, coffee and tea, vitamin D, body morphometry, narcotic medication use, and bone densitometry.
He initially became involved with investigations into the effects of postmenopausal hormone therapy in rheumatic disease, a project funded by an American College of Rheumatology Research and Education Foundation Clinical Investigator Fellowship Award. As part of that project, he conducted a diagnostic validation of rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and osteoarthritis that has enabled investigators nationwide to use the WHI database to answer questions about rheumatic disease. Dr. Walitt currently is a co-investigator on an ancillary study examining the relationships among rheumatic serologies, inflammatory cytokines, and health outcomes.
Research Areas
- Other Medical