James Clifford Thomas, MD

Celine Ward, M.D. grew up in Beirut, Lebanon. She graduated from Notre-Dame de Nazareth with a French Baccalaureate. She then attended the French Faculty of Medicine-Saint Joseph University in Beirut, Lebanon, for a seven-year medicine program. She graduated in 2011. Dr. Ward pursued an internal medicine residency at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, New Jersey. She then joined the Medical University of South Carolina for a two-year rheumatology fellowship from July 2015 through June 2017. Upon conclusion of her fellowship, Dr. Ward joined the MUSC Division of Rheumatology. She takes care of adult patients with systemic connective tissue diseases (lupus, scleroderma, vasculitis, and myositis) as well as inflammatory arthritis (rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and ankylosing spondylitis), with a particular interest in scleroderma and scleroderma-related conditions.

Dr. Jim Oates is a professor of medicine and Director of the Division of Rheumatology at the Medical University of South Carolina. He received a BS in chemistry at Bates College and a medical degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1991. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine and fellowship in rheumatology at Duke University Medical Center in 1996. He came to the Medical University of South Carolina in 1996 to complete a research fellowship and joined the faculty of the Division of Rheumatology in 1997.Dr. Oates' clinical and research interests are focused on systemic lupus erythematosus. He is involved in clinical trials of therapies for systemic lupus erythematosus and lupus nephritis and is the principal investigator on several studies at MUSC involving noninvasive markers of disease and mechanisms through which disease severity may increase among African-Americans. He is an active member of the M.U.S.C.L.E. Research Group. Dr. Oates has supported clinical research at a regional and national level by serving the President of the American Federation for Medical Research and President of the Southern Society for Clinical Investigation, where he now serves as an associate editor of its journal, the American Journal of Medical Sciences. He has received numerous awards, including: Phi Beta Kappa from Bates College; the Four Schools Physician Scientist Training Program Scholarship from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; the Senior Rheumatology Scholar Award from the American College of Rheumatology (ACR); the Arthritis Investigator Award from the ACR and its foundation; the Research Education Foundation (REF); the Merck Young Investigator Award; the REF/European League Against Rheumatism International Exchange Award; and, the Developing Scholar Award from the Medical University of South Carolina Health Sciences Foundation.