Highlights from Nation Kidney Foundation Spring Clinical Meeting

Announcer:
Welcome to NKF Action Center on ReachMD. On this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Samira Farouk, who’s an Associate Professor of Medicine and Medical Education and Associate Program Director of the nephrology fellowship program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Farouk is here to share what she’s looking forward to seeing at the National Kidney Foundation Spring Clinical Meeting. Let’s hear from her now.

Dr. Farouk:
So I'm really excited about this year's NKF meeting. Obviously, it's going to be one of the first nephrology meetings where we will be meeting in person. As a transplant nephrologist and also as a clinician educator, there are many sessions that I'm very interested in for this upcoming meeting. So, particularly for trainees, including residents, nephrology fellows and medical students, there are a few sessions that are geared towards the trainee group. There's actually a fellows reception that's going to be a panel that discusses career choices in nephrology that I think can be very enlightening for anybody that is already interested in nephrology or not really sure yet. I'm also very interested in the medical education space, particularly innovative medical education strategies using digital media and social media. And there actually is an entire session called Digital Media in Nephrology Education, that will be chaired by Dr. Jennie Lin, who I have worked with on some projects as well, so I think that will also be very exciting. And then I think a new session that they'll be trying this year is called the Fellows Trivia Night, which is not only for fellows I was told but, anybody that wants to participate, and I think that will also be a lot of fun and exciting to have a little bit of competition.

I think what's great to see in this year's NKF program is that there are several sessions that are geared towards not only nephrologists but also other members of the care team—pharmacists, nutritionists, social workers, dietitians—that really address, the importance of now focusing on how do we deliver equitable care to patients with kidney disease, and I'll just name a few of them that stood out to me. There's one session that is titled, “Towards Achieving Transplant Equity,” another session that is called “Structural Racism and Kidney Disease: Understanding Racial Disparities in Outcomes.” I think these sessions will be very important for us to kind of look at the work that is being done in this area so that we can all understand where these disparities and inequities lie so that we can begin to take steps to address them, again, to provide better care for all of our patients.

There are a few others that I thought were really exciting, and I have not really seen sessions like them in other meetings. One of them is called “Social Determinants of Health and the Role of the Nephrology Nurse and Technician.” There is another one called “The Health Equity Listening and Learning Panel.” There will be a session called “Social Disparities in End-Stage Kidney Disease, in Palliative Care as well as Hospice, End-Stage Kidney Disease in the Undocumented Immigrant,” which is I think a really important topic that I have not seen addressed specifically in a national meeting in this way. And then finally, there is a session titled “Promoting Health Equity in CKD Care.” Again, I think the theme of all of these sessions that I just mentioned is the same: How do we improve the care that we deliver and deliver it in an equitable, just way?

Announcer:
That was Dr. Samira Farouk sharing highlights from this year’s National Kidney Foundation Spring Clinical Meeting. To access other episodes in this series, visit ReachMD.com/NKF, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!