In academic medicine we are all aware of the pressure to publish, and the metric by which many judge the quality of the papers that are published by a given author is the impact factor of the journal…
An ESRD patient on CAPD was recently admitted to our hospital with possible pneumonia. It was noticed that he had painful plaque-like necrosis, with areas of ulceration. Even in the absence of a skin biopsy, the consensus was…
A 46 year old man with a recent diagnosis of acute leukemia and white count of 90,000 was transferred to our facility with non-oliguric AKI secondary to tumor lysis syndrome. The patient was hypocalcemic (Ca 5.2mg/dl) and hyperphosphatemic…
When putting a patient on CRRT, the choice of buffer these days is largely dependent on whether or not you want to use citrate for anticoagulation. Most of our patients get either citrate or bicarbonate. However, not so…
A patient who had been working in a recycling company that handled thermometers presented with fever, dry cough, fatigue and rash. Based on imaging (CXR showed massive radio-opaque material in the lungs, right atrium and right ventricle; skeletal…
The above figure compares long term survival in a subgroup of a trial that was published in Circulation in 1980. This was a randomized controlled trial of just over 1000 patients with known cardiovascular disease who were treated with medical…
Nathan Hellman, MD, PhD was an insightful young scientist, a compassionate doctor, a good friend, and a charismatic person with the unique ability to bring people together, as evidenced by this blog which he founded as a Renal…
A woman with no past medical history was admitted to the ICU service with acute kidney injury secondary to atypical HUS. She was early in pregnancy and we were consulted in order to start dialysis. The management of…
Cardiovascular disease is the main cause of death among ESRD patients. However, this excess cardiovascular mortality in ESRD patients should not be mainly attributed to coronary artery disease or myocardial infarction. The 4D study and other studies have…
We were evaluating a kidney transplant recipient three weeks after surgery who presented with a rise in creatinine. We obtained an ultrasound which showed a large fluid collection and mild hydronephrosis. Prograf level was at goal. Peritransplant fluid…