John P. Whelan, MD, PhD

Patrick Whelan MD Ph.D. is an Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Rheumatology at UCLA. He completed his undergraduate degree in biochemistry at Harvard University, the Ph.D. degree at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, and the MD degree at Baylor College of Medicine. He completed rheumatology training at Harvard and was for twenty years a pediatric rheumatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

He is the past president of the Los Angeles Pediatric Society and helps run their summer program for high school students interested in a career in pediatrics. His research interests pertain to non-inflammatory vasculopathies, particularly Kohlmeier-Degos disease, and he has spearheaded efforts at UCLA to develop multidisciplinary care for patients with the PANS and PANDAS syndromes -- conditions that contribute to OCD, tic, and behavioral problems in young children. He also has a longstanding interest in Catholic bioethics.

Clinical interest
1. Diffuse connective tissue diseases (juvenile lupus, dermatomyositis, systemic sclerosis, Sjogren's disease, juvenile rheumatoid arthitis/JIA, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis)
2. Kohlmeier-Degos disease, COPA, and other rare vasculopathies
3. Henoch-Schoenlein purpura and other forms of vasculitis
4. Familial fever syndromes (FMF, TRAPS, CAPS) and other autoinflammatory disorders (Behcets, sarcoidosis, CRMO, PFAPA)
5. Covid and other viral vasculopathies
6. PANS/PANDAS and fibromyalgia
7. Autoimmune manifestations of immunodeficiency, including the 22q11 deletion syndromes
8. Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Marfan's, Stickler syndrome, and other hypermobility syndromes