Sarah Tarplin, M.D.

Dr. Sarah Tarplin grew up in Summit, New Jersey. She was initially inspired to become a physician after participating regularly in community service-related medical volunteer trips to the Dominican Republic. She attended Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where she studied Spanish Language and Linguistics as well as premedicine. She then performed cancer research at the National Institutes of Health before going on to attend medical school at Georgetown University School of Medicine. Dr. Tarplin completed her Internal Medicine residency at Loyola University Medical Center, in Chicago, IL. During that time, she developed a strong interest in Rheumatology and healthcare quality improvement, as well as women’s health concerns within the field of Rheumatology and shared decision-making.

Dr. Tarplin then completed her Rheumatology Fellowship Training at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, TN. At Vanderbilt, she further cultivated her clinical and research pursuits in Rheumatology, helping to create an online curriculum on Gout arthritis in order to improve care of Gout patients and improve medical education. She also designed a clinical research initiative on pregnancy outcomes in women with Rheumatoid Arthritis, with the goal of better understanding and improving the care of pregnant women with Rheumatoid Arthritis and women of child-bearing age with Rheumatoid Arthritis. In addition to these interests in Gout and Rheumatoid Arthritis, Dr. Tarplin is also interested in Vasculitis syndromes such as ANCA-associated vasculitis (GPA and MPA) and GCA (Temporal Arteritis), as well as Psoriatic Arthritis, Reactive Arthritis, Ankylosing Spondylitis, Lupus, and medication management of inflammatory eye conditions using an inter-disciplinary approach with ophthalmology. Dr. Tarplin is also an advanced Spanish-speaker and is able to communicate with Spanish-speaking patients.