In honor of #CRPSAwarenessMonth, Dr. Lin interviews physician scientist Vivianne Tawfik, MD, PhD, who just won the ASA James Cottrell Presidential Scholar’s Award for her work with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). Dr. Tawfik has a successful lab studying causes such as glial function, her clinical work with CRPS, as well as her work mentoring upcoming physicians and scientists. The topic is one that is intellectually challenging, with life-changing implications for people with CRPS, and one that the CSA Podcast is proud to call attention to.
So many people with CRPS struggle to see the possibilities of living and thriving despite it - the podcast has pulled in an amazing advocate who managed to return to her international sports career after proper diagnosis and management - by Dr. Tawfik!
This is the story of Coco Vandeweghe, an American professional tennis player. She achieved a career high world ranking of #9 in 2017, when she made the semifinals of two Grand Slam tournaments, the Australian Open and US Open. She was knocked out of her sport in early 2019 with mysterious symptoms which, after a lot of uncertain times, was diagnosed by Dr. Vivianne Tawflik at Stanford as CRPS, and she has beaten all odds to return to an elite level of professional tennis. This August, she won a professional tennis tournament in Concord, Massachusetts.