One of the problems clinicians face when a COVID-19 patient is hospitalized is opining what other complications this patient will present. All too often, kidney failure is among the most common result. (This held for 46% of the patients treated at Mount Sinai, with about 1/3 of them requiring dialysis). The issue is getting the affected patients on dialysis before it’s too late to save their lives.
Continue reading Just in Time for the 3rd Wave
I’m getting scared.
I’m hearing a bunch of Republicans claiming that they are going to find ways to save money in Medicare. And, they are more naïve than I was in the early 1970s, when the goal was to convince Congress to pass HR1- the coverage of dialysis costs by the US Government. So the death panels (yes, they really existed) that made decisions as to who could be treated by dialysis and who would be left to die would no longer obtain.
Continue reading High Hopes (without foundation)
Wow. A Nobel Prize!
I am pretty sure I told you that I had hoped to win one of those when I was a tyke. Until I found out that engineers aren’t the ones who get them. These awards are for the “pure” sciences, not for the folks that convert those cold hard facts into useful items. Enough grousing.
Continue reading Alter-Houghton-Rice
The first successful kidney transplant was performed in 1954 by Dr. Joseph Murray, which put Murray on the path to receiving the Nobel Prize. Dr. Thomas Starzl transplanted the liver 13 years later, and then Dr. Christian Barnard performed the first heart transplant that same year.
Continue reading John Najarian, Abdominal Transplant Surgeon
Well, what we’ll discuss today is pretty amazing.
But, I need to explain a few things to you first, so you can see how amazing it really is.
Continue reading Something Big!
It’s been a year or so since TheDonald issued his executive orders covering dialysis procedures. The goals were laudable- more transplants and more home dialysis.
Continue reading A squelched executive order
To be honest, the best system I had ever seen for home dialysis (other than a full-fledged dialysate delivery unit for which most patients lack the space, lack the capital to acquire, and the technical ability to maintain) was the system developed by Home Intensive Care (HIC).
Many of you wonder if we will see a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 soon. Given the fact that the virus has been genetically mapped and the disease caused by this virus is rampaging across the planet, the odds are likely. Note I didn’t say it would be a fully effective vaccine or that it would be perfectly safe.
Continue reading A decade’s long trip
Tell me again that we can’t use stem cells…
Just like we did two decades ago- right before the s…t hit the fan and stem cell research was outlawed. We made a (very crude) kidney using stem cells. Now, folks smarter and more skilled than us are taking the steps to truly make dialysis a thing of the past.
Continue reading Breakthrough!
