Every year, DaVita Kidney Care strives to improve clinical outcomes for our patients by evaluating the way nephrologists and dialysis caregivers approach patient care. Since 2000, we have succeeded in improving outcomes in specific areas relating to infection control, improved catheter rates, increased use of fistulas, better dialysis adequacy and year-over-year decreased mortality rates.[1] The end result of these improvements in care is increased overall quality of life for our patients. Read more…

The end stage renal disease program has a 40-year legacy of providing life-sustaining care to countless vulnerable patients with otherwise fatal kidney disease. There has been an intense focus on aspects of care delivered in the dialysis center, including anemia management, renal bone disease treatment, nutrition planning and the transition to vascular access. These critically important aspects of care must be provided at the highest level of quality.
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I was speaking to a group of end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients at a symposium recently and met a 50-year-old man with polycystic kidney disease who had just started on in-center hemodialysis. He had been followed by a nephrologist for a number of years prior to progressing to ESRD, and had been well prepared by conventional standards to start dialysis while being placed on the cadaver transplant list. He had an arteriovenous fistula, and began dialysis uneventfully as an outpatient. He said that physically he was adapting well to dialysis, but was concerned and depressed because he quit his job when he knew dialysis was imminent. His doctor had not had a conversation about this issue with him and he didn’t know what to do or how he was going to continue to take care of his family. He asked me why dialysis patients had to stop working and he was surprised to hear me say that he could continue working, and that his doctor and dialysis facility should be helping him work through this issue and get back to work. This story is only too common. Read more…

Every March National Kidney Month comes around, and every March I wonder how it is that the eighth leading cause of death in this country still hasn’t achieved the public recognition and awareness level of other killers, like heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes. It seems we could save so many lives and avoid so much suffering if the general public knew even the most basic information about kidney disease and its risk factors.

But the somewhat frustrating truth is that when I talk about what I do professionally with nonmedical people, I frequently hear the question, “What’s dialysis?” People generally seem to know they have kidneys and know they’re important, but have no idea why.

There’s so much health-related information available—so many conditions clamoring for funding and recognition—that it may all be too much for the modern consumer to digest.  Frankly, there are so many ribbons representing advocacy for various disease states that no one seems to know which color goes with which illness anymore. For example, the ribbon for kidney conditions is green, but so are the ribbons for bipolar disorder, celiac disease, scoliosis, cerebral palsy and Tourette syndrome, to name a few. Read more…

A recent editorial in the New York Times described a move by the New York City public hospital system to “pay doctors based on how well they perform.” (1) Under this program, the more than 3,000 salaried doctors at the NYU School of Medicine, the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the Physician Affiliate Group of New York will receive no cost-of-living increases for the next three years, but there will be annual bonuses tied to meeting quality-performance goals. In the same issue of the Times there is an important critique of the pay-for-performance (P4P) approach, describing what many policy experts have said for years: “If only it worked.” (2) Op-ed columnist Bill Keller points out that the real driver of costs in our healthcare system is not overutilization of services, but rather the high unit cost of each service. Others may debate this premise, but the reality is likely a bit of both—more units and higher cost for each. As Bill Clinton said during the 2012 Democratic National Convention, “it’s math, folks,” and P4P is unlikely to change these factors significantly. Read more…

My last blog used the infamous Rodney King episode in Los Angeles as the springboard for suggesting that integrating care—physicians, hospitals and patients working together—is essential to achieve the best clinical outcomes for the chronically ill while constraining the runaway costs of healthcare. A recent article in The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/25/opinion/approaching-illness-as-a-team-at-the-cleveland-clinic.html?_r=0) makes it clear that this is not a theoretical concept. Physicians at one of the great healthcare organizations in the country, the Cleveland Clinic, have been forming focused teams that can mobilize to efficiently diagnose and treat a variety of illnesses, including neurological, cardiovascular, oncologic, urologic and nephrologic. Read more…

On March 3, 1991, an infamous event was caught on videotape in Los Angeles. Rodney King, a parolee and construction worker, was beaten brutally by Los Angeles police officers following a high-speed chase. After the video went viral the police officers were arrested and charged with assault and excessive force. Following the acquittal of three of the four officers on April 29, 1992, there were riots in Los Angeles, with 53 people killed and thousands injured. It was during the riots that Rodney King, the lightning rod for these events, asked, “Can we all get along?” Read more…

It seems that everywhere one looks in the healthcare media these days, there are stories about the competitive advantages of physicians using social media. For example, American Medical News recently published a very informative article entitled “Four Ways Social Media Can Improve Your Medical Practice,” which illustrates the ways in which physicians using social media as a listening tool can discover needed services, improve customer service, gather feedback on medications and compare and improve quality.

I don’t disagree that social media offers physicians a valuable listening tool that may well provide some competitive advantage. But I’m much more interested in the collaborative advantage social media offers as a community-building tool. Read more…

I am becoming more optimistic as I continue to understand and refine the programs of VillageHealth, the DaVita integrated care–management organization, and delve into the incredible success of HealthCare Partners, DaVita’s new partner. This optimism is driven by the belief that physician-led, physician-driven, patient-centric care can not only be accomplished, but such an approach optimizes clinical outcomes while responsibly controlling costs. Read more…

This weekend my wife and I visited some friends in Santa Barbara who are supporters of The Music Academy of the West. The Academy was founded by a group of artists and patrons in 1947 to “…aid in the development of gifted young classical musicians through advanced study with accomplished faculty artists.…” The Academy has evolved and now has its own campus where each summer more than 130 fellows participate through a combination of personal instruction, educational programs and live performances before small or large audiences. Guest faculty includes some of the icons of the music world, such as vocalist Marilyn Horne, opera legend Kiri Te Kanawa, violinist Gil Shaham, pianist Ingrid Fliter, and percussionist Colin Currie. Underlying it all is a strong culture of mentoring, as there is in training for a professional music career even while in school.

Participating students are experiencing this incredible summer experience while on hiatus from New England Conservatory, Juilliard, The Cleveland Institute of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Eastman School of Music and many other prestigious institutions. As I read through each student biography, I was struck by the fact that not only was the person’s school listed, but the key teacher with whom each student worked was identified as well. Mentoring. I had a chance not only to listen to solo, ensemble and orchestra performances, but also to talk to some of the students about their dreams for the future. There was a sense of wonder, of anticipation, of passion about the career for which they were preparing that inspired me. But it also made me think about my own career and the future of nephrology.

This was not the first time I was introspective about the need to re-examine nephrology as a discipline; to rethink how we attract the best and the brightest to the specialty and create opportunities for young doctors to see why nephrology, and improving the lives of kidney patients, is a noble, desirable career. In 2004 my colleagues and I published the results of a survey we took of 67 fellows participating in an advanced perceptorship in nephrology.¹ We found that exposure to hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis was pathetic, with 50% of fellows reporting fewer than three months of exposure to in-center hemodialysis ICHD, often without didactic sessions or regular attending rounds) and 25% no exposure at all to peritoneal dialysis. This mirrored concerns expressed by many more than 10 years previously. ^2-4

Well, here we are, another 8 years later and has the situation improved? Three recent articles address this issue. Merighi et al. attempted to study the relationship between nephrology training experience and subsequent clinical practice. ⁵ Using a national survey, data from 2010 provided insights into the experience of over 600 nephrologists. Nearly 40% of respondents answered they did not feel well prepared for the care of dialysis patients at the end of their fellowship. In addition, although over 90% of dialysis patients in the US utilize ICHD, only 6% of the nephrologists surveyed would choose this modality for themselves.

Is this just a problem with training programs or is it a problem with the expectations residents have as they consider nephrology as a career? Shah et al. have tried to address this question in a fascinating study published recently. ⁶ Over 50% of the time nephrology was chosen prior to the second year of medical residency training, in half of these individuals during medical school or before. While the majority chose nephrology because of the interesting subject material, only 65% reported that mentoring or a role model was influential in the decision. A disappointing 64% were extremely or very satisfied about their career choice; however, the most common reason for high levels of satisfaction was mentoring.

So, how can the torch of nephrology be brightened, enhancing interest in the specialty, attracting the best and the brightest who can drive innovation in outcomes for our patients? Jhaveri et al. have proposed an interesting elective experience for medical residents that is an important step in the right direction.⁷ While there are many creative components to this approach, enhanced mentoring is an important component.

The theme is inescapable: if we really want to attract the nephrologists we would like to care for our families and ourselves, we need to focus on role models and mentors who are passionate about nephrology, about service to patients and about innovating to improve outcomes. If we can instill these cultural values in young physicians early in their career decision-making process, we can perhaps begin to build the discipline of nephrology to new greatness.

As Robert Frost said,

“I am not a teacher, but an awakener.”

It is incumbent on all of use to awaken the passion in students and colleagues to build the discipline our patients deserve.

Plutarch, over 2000 years ago, said it best:

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”

Striving to bring quality to life,
Allen R. Nissenson, MD

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1. Nissenson AR et al. Improving Outcomes in CKD and ESRD Patients: Carrying the Torch from Training to Practice. Semin in Dial 17:380, 2004.
2. Fine LG. A Proposal to Improve the Attractiveness of Nephrology as a Subspecialty Choice for Residents in Internal Medicine. Am J Kidney Dis 15:302, 1990.
3. Nissenson AR. Morbidity and Mortality of United States Dialysis Patients. The Legacy of Inadequate Nephrologist Training? Semin in Dial 5:277, 1992.
4. Kimmel PL et al. Effectiveness of Renal Fellowship Training for Subsequent Clinical Practice. Am J Kidney Dis 18:249, 1991.
5. Merighi JR et al. Insights into Nephrologist Training, Clinical Practice, and Dialysis Choice. Hemodial Internat 16:242, 2012.
6. Shah HH et al. Career Choice Selection and Satisfaction among US Adult Nephrology Fellows. www.cjasn.org Vol 7 September, 2012.
7. Jhaveri KD et al. Enhancing Interest in Nephrology Careers During Medical Residency, in press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1053/j.ajkd.2012.04.020.