Richard (Rick) Silver, M.D. was appointed to lead the Division in 1995 and served in that capacity until 2018. Dr. Silver is a native Tennessean and a graduate of the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt School of Medicine. He completed an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Pursuing an interest in childhood rheumatic diseases, he traveled to the UK to train with Dr. Barbara Ansell in the Pediatric Rheumatic Disease Unit at Northwick Park Hospital and Taplow. Dr. Silver returned to the US to complete a fellowship in Rheumatology with Dr. Nathan Zvaifler at the University of California-San Diego. At the urging of his wife, a Charlestonian with a strong desire to return to her roots, he joined the MUSC faculty in 1981. Over the next 30+ years, he conducted clinical translational research focused on scleroderma and interstitial lung disease. His early studies of cyclophosphamide for SSc-ILD helped lay the foundation for major multicenter trials including the Scleroderma Lung Study I and II. He was one of the first to describe the Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome, a scleroderma mimic, and its association with the ingestion of L-tryptophan.
Dr. Silver maintains an active clinical practice, teaches and continues to pursue research on SSc-ILD with his colleague, Dr. Galina Bogatkevich. During his tenure as Director, the Division experienced remarkable growth in terms of faculty size, grant funding, and clinical expansion. Dr. Silver was instrumental in recruiting the state’s first pediatric rheumatologist, Dr. Natasha Ruth, whom he first met and mentored as a teenager, and now she leads the Division of Pediatric Rheumatology at MUSC. Early in his tenure as Division Director, Dr. Silver recruited Dr. Gary Gilkeson and Dr. Jim Oates to MUSC from Duke University. Together they have built a large and vibrant Lupus Center focused on renal disease, biomarkers, genetic and environmental causes of lupus, novel therapies, and health disparities in the Lowcountry African American population known as the Gullah people. Dr. Silver was instrumental in establishing a SC SmartState® Center for Inflammation and Fibrosis Research at MUSC. The Center’s $10M budget includes two endowed chairs, one currently held by Dr. Carol Feghali-Bostwick recruited from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and the other held by Dr. Betty Tsao recruited from the University of California at Los Angeles. During his tenure, the Rheumatology fellowship program saw significant growth and refinement. Dr. Marcy Bolster, the first fellowship program director named by Silver, now leads the program in Rheumatology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, while Dr. Faye Hant now leads the program at MUSC. Undoubtedly, his proudest achievement has been mentoring many fellows over the years, including his daughter, Dr. Kate Silver, an adult and pediatric rheumatologist and member of the Division of Rheumatology at MUSC.
