News

In 2018, an ISN Continuing Medical Education (CME) meeting was held in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, attended by medical students and professionals from Iran, Russia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, and Lithuania.

The course, hosted by the head of the Tajik Society of Nephrology, Ahtam Sadikov, comprised 15 lectures with a question and answer session after each talk. Two onsite visits of public and private hospitals were organized as part of the course, including some valuable patient case discussions. A local meeting focusing on nephrology and transplantation was held in parallel to the course.

A transplant program exists in Tajikistan, but with no basic insurance, many patients find both transplant and dialysis treatments inaccessible. Poor knowledge of the English language is also a barrier to training for nephrologists in the region. Courses like this help doctors to access the knowledge they need and encourage further education.

Shahrzad Ossareh, ISN Councilor for the Middle East, believes that the meeting was successful in improving the nephrology knowledge of attendees. She noticed a lack of essential nephrology laboratory tests as well as kidney biopsy in the country. She says: “I hope that we can teach Tajik doctors more about kidney biopsy skills and train a number of nephropathologists to overcome this critical issue. Sending patients abroad for kidney biopsy, which is the current practice, is not affordable or convenient for many patients.”