Nephrology

During the 1996-1997 academic year the number of clinical faculty continued at 4. Drs. Carl Grushkin and Gary Lerner are based at Childrens Hospital on a full time basis and Drs. Lawrence Opas and Donna Elliott (from the Department of Pediatrics at the LAC+USC Medical Center) join them on a part time basis.

The End-stage Renal Disease Program continues to have large numbers of patients and the Renal Transplant Program showed significantly increased activity. During the year, 21 renal transplants were carried out with a success rate of 96%. Of the 21 transplants performed, 9 were living related donor transplants. Drs. Brian Hardy and Neil Sherman from the Divisions of Urology and Pediatric Surgery provide the surgical component of care for these patients. There was a continued emphasis on living related donor transplantation.

Drs. Grushkin and Lerner continue to have large numbers of patients with general renal problems referred from the community and these patients are increasing in number and complexity.

Twenty-five residents and medical students took the Renal Elective during the past academic year. This is a significant increase from the prior year by a factor of 33%. Each of the members of the Division participated in invited post graduate talks with Drs. Grushkin and Lerner each giving 4 invited talks in the Greater Los Angeles community. Dr. Ellin Lieberman arranged a major renal symposium covering both internal medicine nephrology and pediatric nephrology in Russia under the auspices of the USC Department of Continuing Education.

In addition to this, both Dr. Grushkin and Dr. Lerner gave multiple presentations on renal topics to the entire Pediatric House Staff.

Finally Dr. Grushkin was presented the Mead Johnson Teaching Award by the Pediatric House Staff.

The division actively participates in the North American Pediatric Renal Transplant Cooperative Study involving patients who are undergoing renal transplantation, dialysis patients and patients with renal insufficiency prior to reaching dialysis. In addition, a number of other studies are planned and will be implemented during the 1997-1998 year. These include studies of focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, growth hormone and the use of IVIG to decrease antibodies in patients who have high levels of cytotoxic antibodies thereby preventing them from receiving a renal transplant.

The addition of a Clinical Research Nurse funded by the division has enabled us to be involved in a greater number of research activities.