The first physician matters: Family medicine deserves recognition in lupus guidelines.

The article focuses on the omission of family physicians in the 2023 European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) recommendations for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), highlighting the critical role primary care plays in early diagnosis. It notes that diagnostic delays, often exceeding two years, are linked to worse patient outcomes and that many patients first present to family physicians with nonspecific symptoms. Current lupus guidelines, including those from the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), emphasize specialist care but largely overlook primary care involvement. The authors advocate for future guidelines to explicitly recognize family physicians' role, provide practical diagnostic guidance for primary care, and establish shared management criteria to improve early detection and reduce organ damage. [Extracted from the article]