Dr. Christine Bernal is a pediatric rheumatologist who, after her residency training in pediatrics at UST Hospital, pursued her fellowship training in rheumatology at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. While training abroad, she was a recipient of several prestigious awards, including Drs. Ralph and Judith Feigin Resident Award of Excellence, American College of Rheumatology(ACR) Outstanding Fellow Award, and ACR Amgen Pediatric Rheumatology Research Award. Her research on lupus, Kawasaki, polyarteritis nodosa, and juvenile idiopathic arthritis has been published in international journals, including Arthritis and Rheumatism, International Journal of Rheumatic Diseases, and APLAR Journal of Rheumatology. She also authored a chapter on Juvenile idiopathic arthritis for Arthritis and Allied Conditions in 2005, a chapter on Disorders of Bones and Connective Tissues for Fundamentals of Pediatrics in 2014, and an 8th edition of the Avner textbook of Pediatric Nephrology on the chapter of lupus nephritis (2022) and in the 1 st edition of the PCP Textbook of Internal Medicine (2024). A UST Faculty of Medicine and Surgery graduate, she now serves her alma mater as AssociateProfessor. She is the current chair of the Special Interest Group on Pediatric Rheumatology of the Philippine Rheumatology Association (PRA) and the country representative on the same SIG of the Asia Pacific League of Association in Rheumatology (APLAR). At present, she is the section chief of Pediatric Rheumatology at UST Hospital and Cardinal Santos Medical Center; an active affiliate consultant of The Medical City, St. Luke’s Medical Center, and Philippine Children’s Medical Center and a visiting consultant in a number of tertiary hospitals in Metro Manila.
