Online Curricula

Online Curricula: Dialysis "Virtual Mentor" Curriculum

End-stage renal disease (ESRD) affects more than 500,000 Americans, and the majority of these patients receive dialysis therapy. Recognizing the importance and centrality of this therapy to physician training and patient care, the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) Dialysis Advisory Group developed a comprehensive curriculum for trainees and nephrologists, the "ASN Virtual Mentor Dialysis Curriculum." This curriculum spans a substantial portion of what trainees need to understand—and what nephrologists may want to refresh—about the provision of dialysis care, from machinery to preventive health and from drug dosing to peritoneal dialysis in special populations.

Besides bringing together dialysis education information already available—via the ASN Kidney Week In-Depth Nephrology Course on Maintenance Dialysis and materials developed through collaboration of North American Chapter of International Society of Peritoneal Dialysis, ASN DAG, and the ASN Training Program Directors Committee—DAG identified gaps in dialysis educational materials not readily available and developed PowerPoint-based material to fill that void. The Virtual Mentor Curriculum unites this information in one location, freely accessible to all ASN members and other members of the kidney community.

ASN's members, leadership, and staff are grateful to DAG and PowerPoint authors who devoted considerable time and expertise to developing this text, especially DAG chair Rajnish Mehrotra, MD, FASN, and DAG member Suzanne Watnick, MD, who spearheaded this initiative. Providing the optimal dialysis care for patients with kidney failure demands considerable breadth and depth of expertise. This curriculum will yield substantial benefits for kidney care professionals and the patients they treat. ASN thanks DAG for supporting the Society's continued efforts to lead the fight against kidney disease.

For more information about the curriculum, DAG, or ASN, please contact policy@asn-online.org or 202-640-4660.

Administrative Issues in Running a Dialysis Unit

• 1 Appropriate staffing of a dialysis unit
  Gina Randolph
• 2 Conditions for coverage - an overview
  David van Wyck
• 3 Continuous quality improvement in dialysis units
  Utpal Patel
• 4 Infrastructure for a PD program
  Fred Finkelstein
• 5 PD Training: staff education
  Judith Bernadini
• 6 Prevention of transmission of non-access related infection in
  dialysis patients
  Rajnish Mehrotra

Complications of HD

• 1 Intra and intradialytic hypotension and hypertension: Salt and
  Water Balance in HD
  Jula Inrig
• 2 Prevention and management of infectious complications of HD
  Michael Allon

Complications of PD

• 1 Non-infectious complications of PD
  Joanne Bargman
• 2 Prevention and management of infectious complications of PD
  Beth Piraino

Daily Hemodialysis

• 1 Assessing patient eligibility for home HD
  Michel Chonchol
• 2 Home/Intensive Hemodialysis
  Christopher T. Chan, MD, FRCPC
• 3 Medical Management of Home Hemodialysis Patients
  Brent W. Miller, MD
• 4 Writing the Home Hemodialysis (HHD) Prescription
  Joel D. Glickman, MD

Dialysis Access

• 1 Attaining and Maintaining Dialysis Access
  Louise Moist MD, MSc
• 2 Cannulation of Vascular Access
  Deborah Zimmerman MD, MSc
• 3 Monitoring and Surveillance of Vascular Access
  Tushar Vachharajani MD, FASN
• 4 Prevention and Treatment of Dialysis Catheter Malfunction and Infections
  Charmaine E. Lok MD, MSc, FRCP(C)

Economic Considerations

• 1 Financial considerations in the era of bundling, Part 1
  John Burkart
• 2 Financial considerations in the era of bundling, Part 2
  John Burkart

How Dialysis Works

• 1 Application of peritoneal physiology for prescription management
  Isaac Teitelbaum
• 2 Hemodiafiltration
  Martin K. Kuhlmann, MD
• 3 Hemodialysis solute transport and assessment of adequacy
  Brent Miller
• 4 PD Prescription Modeling
  Maria DeVita
• 5 Peritoneal Dialysis Adequacy
  Suzanne Watnick
• 6 Volume Management in PD
  Ali Abu-Alfa

Infection Prevention

• 1 Infection Prevention
  Nephrologists Transforming Dialysis Safety (NTDS)

Initiation of Dialysis

• 1 CKD education: modality options for the patients
  J Glickman and J Bernadini
• 2 Chronic Kidney Disease Education - Physician Perspectives
  Joel Glickman, MD
• 3 Preparation for Renal Replacement Therapy
  Rajnish Mehrotra

Medical Management of Dialysis Patient

• 1 Anemia, Iron, Erythropoietin
  Jeff Berns
• 2 CKD-MBD
  Sharon Moe
• 3 Drug dosing in dialysis patients
  Jula Inrig
• 4 Management of non-traditional CV risk factors in ESRD
  David Charytan
• 5 Management of traditional CV risk factors in ESRD
  Robert Toto
• 6 Nutrition and Trace Elements
  Alp Ikizler
• 7 The Challenge of Sudden Cardiac Death in Hemodialysis Patients
  Patrick Pun

Mental Health

• 1 Patient perspectives, including quality of life, and end-of-life care
  Suzanne Watnick

Technical Issues of Hemodialysis

• 1 Hemodialysis Machines
  Bessie Young and Suhail Ahmed
• 2 Hemodialyzers, including reuse
  Alfred Cheung and Richard A. Ward, PhD

Uremic Toxins

• 1 Uremic Toxins, Part 1
  Ray Vanholder
• 2 Uremic Toxins, Part 2
  Ray Vanholder