Regional Activities

CME interventional nephrology training in Nigeria

With support from the ISN Continuing Medical Education (CME) Program, the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital and the George Institute for Global Health in India organized a specific training course on interventional nephrology, specifically tailored to the needs of nephrologists in resource-poor settings. Some 77 participants from across four of the six geopolitical zones of...

TPM workshop takes place in India

With support from an ISN-ANIO Program Scholar, the Kerala Network for Organ Sharing (KNOS) of India, in collaboration with Spain's Donation and Transplantation Institute (DTI) organized a course on Transplant Procurement Management (TPM). It helped physicians gain fundamental knowledge on TPM and develop their professional competences as specialists in the field of organ donation. This...

Sister centers in India and USA unite over pediatric nephrology care

Six years of partnership have now led to the Christian Medical College in Vellore (India) becoming a center of excellence in kidney care. Partnering with University of California, Los Angeles (USA), doctors at the center in India are training staff in pediatric nephrology, improving dialysis and transplant treatment for a younger group of patients. Thanks...

Cho Ray Hospital: A portrait of Vietnam’s training center of excellence

After many years of partnership with Westmead Hospital and Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (Australia), Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) has become a center of excellence, developing cross-regional training programs. Speaking during the Voices of Sister Centers session at the ISN World Congress of Nephrology, Huong Tran explains her own ISN Fellowship...

Kidney transplantation in Kazakhstan – rising to the challenge

Scientific Research Institute of Cardiology and Internal Diseases in Almaty, Kazakhstan benefitted from the experience of ISN Educational Ambassador Aimun Ahmed to improve kidney transplant treatment for patients. Kazakhstan's Scientific Research Institute of Cardiology and Internal Diseases is one of the only centers that offers kidney transplantation in the region. Arina Yespotayeva explains how the...

Stepping out for kidney health in Guatemala

400 people in the Southern city of Escuintla (Guatemala) joined a walk for ‘healthy kidneys’, organized by Angie Aguilar-González and colleagues from Guatemala’s Foundation for Children with Kidney Disease. As an ISN-Hydration for Kidney Health (H4KH) New Investigator, she is researching hydration patterns and renal function markers of young patients with a high-incidence of renal...

Strengthening nephrology treatment for Senegal’s young patients

The ISN Educational Ambassadors Program and Saving Young Lives come together to support training collaboration for Senegal’s pediatric nephrologists, improving kidney care for the country’s younger generation. Younoussa Keita, from Hopital Aristide Le Dantec (Senegal) and Stefano Picca, ISN Educational Ambassador, pediatric nephrologist and former Head of Dialysis Unit at 'Bambino Gesù' Children's Hospital (Italy), joined...

First kidney transplant at Children’s Hospital in Burma

The Yangon Children Hospital in Myanmar, Burma welcomed an ISN Educational Ambassador from the National University of Singapore to teach about dialysis and transplantation. This educational visit led to the local medical team carrying out the first pediatric renal transplantation at the hospital. Kar Hui Ng from the National University of Singapore spent a week...

Managing Cameroon’s kidney disease patients

Victorine Bandolo Nzana, from Yaoundé University Teaching Hospital in Cameroon, was awarded an ISN-Salmasi Family Fellowship. Learning from staff at Chennai’s Madras Medical Mission Hospital in India, she broadened her knowledge of interventional nephrology, bridging the gaps in care for patients at the center and across the region. As a recognized ISN Training Center, the...

ISN Educational Ambassadors lend support to Kenya’s nurses

In September, nurses Marie Richards and Thandiwe Ngcobo visited several hospitals in Kenya, supporting the local medical community with their kidney care challenges. As part of the ISN Educational Ambassadors Program, their visit focused on teaching about the important issues surrounding hemodialysis fistulas and vascular access as well as kidney transplantation. They started off by heading...

Meeting with local stakeholders in Jakarta for Indonesia project

ISN President David Harris and President-Elect Vivek Jha traveled to Jakarta, Indonesia in late November 2018 to officially launch a national initiative with the Indonesian Society of Nephrology (PERNEFRI) to improve access to integrated kidney care throughout Indonesia. During this two-day trip, David and Vivek first met with nephrologists from PERNEFRI to align on national nephrology needs...

Stepping up nephrology care in Samoa

ISN headed to Samoa recently to begin developing partnerships with the medical community on the island. The visit revealed how strengthening the ties between ISN, the Asia Pacific Society of Nephrology (ASPN), the Australian and New Zealand Society of Nephrology (ANZSN) and the National Kidney Foundation Samoa (NKFS) provides valuable training to local doctors...

ISN Latin America Regional Board tries new regional board workshop approach in Cartagena

Once every two years, ISN Regional Boards are tasked to organise a ‘workshop’ within the context of one of their regional meetings, with the aim of providing outreach to unaware nephrologists of ISN programs and activities in the region. The workshops have taken many formats; most often, they consist in open meetings where ISN...

China’s regional training centers partner to help each other

In response to the uneven state of nephrology care in China, ISN Regional Training Centers are responding to the educational needs of local medical communities. Ming-hui Zhao, ISN's regional board chair for North East Asia, explains how regional collaboration is key to improving treatment for patients. In Beijing and Shanghai, care is advancing while in...

Regional Workshop in Colombia focuses on connecting Latin America’s nephrologists

Some 25 participants from across Latin America gathered in Cartagena at the ISN Regional Workshop to share knowledge and discuss the major issues the nephrology community in Latin America is facing in 2018. Presidents of ISN, the Latin America Society of Nephrology and Hypertension (SLANH) and the Colombian Society of Nephrology were also present to...

Second ISN Global Kidney Health Summit takes place in UAE

In March, 91 global leaders in nephrology, other renal healthcare workers and healthcare policymakers met at the second Global Kidney Health Summit in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, to develop a strategy to address the unmet needs of patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) around the world over the next 5 to 10 years. ‘We need...

Saving Young Lives – spreading hope and positivity!

Over 30 doctors from different countries in Africa recently gathered in Cape Town to attend the Renal Skills Workshop organized by Professor Mignon McCulloch, from February 19 and 23, 2018 at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. Less than a week after the course, thanks to skills acquired during the peritoneal...

Celebration and progress in Bangladesh

Last week, I received a very warm welcome from the Bangladesh Renal Association and the Kidney Foundation of Bangladesh in Dhaka. Great to see nephrology in Bangladesh on the move, under determined and effective leadership! It was a pleasure presenting the 2017 South Asia Pioneer Award to Harun Ur Rashid alongside the Director General of Health...

SYL training comes to the rescue of young AKI patients in Africa

Saving Young Lives (SYL) recently sent a pediatric nephrologist and a nurse from the University of Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) on a month’s visit to the University of Cotonou (Benin). It helped the Congolese doctors and nurses learn more the latest catheter insertion techniques so they can set up a peritoneal dialysis...