?When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.? This phrase is attributed to Theodore Woodward, MD (1914-2005), a respected physician and researcher at the University of Maryland who used it to teach medical students to assume that the simplest explanation is usually correct in order to avoid patients being misdiagnosed with rare illnesses. But in the rare disease community, we have all learned the hard way that sometimes those hoofbeats are zebra. And thus, the zebra has become the mascot of the rare disease community. Show your support for those with rare diseases, and make sure you wear your stripes on RARE DISEASE DAY!