Elena Joerns, M.D.

Elena Joerns, M.D., is an Instructor in the Department of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She specializes in interstitial pneumonia with autoimmune features (IPAF) and rheumatic disease-related interstitial lung disease (RD-ILD).

Dr. Joerns earned her medical degree at the Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in North Chicago, Illinois. She completed an internal medicine internship at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, followed by residency in internal medicine at Yale University, a fellowship in rheumatology at UT Southwestern, and a research fellowship in rheumatology studying IPAF, also at UT Southwestern. She is taking advanced epidemiology and biostatistics courses as part of the Master of Public Health in Epidemiology Program at the UTHealth School of Public Health in Dallas.

Certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in internal medicine and rheumatology, she joined the UT Southwestern faculty in 2022.

Dr. Joerns is a member of the American College of Rheumatology, the American Thoracic Society, and the Joint Biology Consortium.

Her research interests include IPAF, RD-ILD, biomarker analysis, and clinical outcomes. She has delivered numerous presentations, contributed to the book Netter’s Integrated Review of Medicine: Pathogenesis to Treatment, and published several academic articles related to her areas of expertise.