Additional Program Enhancements

In the face of the changing landscape of Graduate Medical Education, our fellowship continually evolves to ensure that we remain one of the top fellowship programs in the country. Additional strengths of the program are highlighted below.

• Each training site carries a non-teaching service component, functioning without fellow involvement. Though our fellows still have full experiences in bread and butter nephrology, this ensures that they also have the time to enrich their knowledge with more complex cases.
• A Night Call Rotation ensures that the daytime consult fellows are not burdened by overnight call. Because call is taken from home, the Night Call Rotation affords significant time for reading and scholarly activity during the day.
• Emphasis on developing the fellows’ teaching skills with the creation of a “Junior Attending” rotation for second year fellows  The Clements University Hospital General Nephrology Consult Service is a second year fellow only service. In this rotation, the fellow takes a lead role in clinical decision making and in the didactic education for the service residents.
• Procedure support is available for placing temporary dialysis catheters for acute dialytic therapy at our teaching hospitals. This takes the form of either a nephrology run Procedure Team or robust Interventional Radiology support.
• Parkland Hospital cares for the largest population of patients in the Dallas/Fort Worth area with ESRD and limited access to insurance coverage for maintenance dialysis (usually because of undocumented residency status). Though it remains essential for our Division to continue to provide care to these disadvantaged patients with few other options, this clinical activity was transitioned to a non-teaching service since July 2015.
• A continuity experience in home hemodialysis for second year fellows has been added to the already very strong home modalities education in peritoneal dialysis.
• Fellows are able to modify their education according to their own interests and knowledge gaps. The following electives provide this flexibility: Interventional Nephrology, Dialysis 101, CRRT Basics, Transplant Immunology Lab, Pretransplant/Donor Evaluation, Apheresis, Renal Pathology, Urology Clinic, Vascular Access Surgery, Private Practice Internship and Transplant Infectious Disease Consults, Small Group Teaching, and Palliative Care.
• A structured Mentor Program exists to ensure that each trainee fulfills his/her maximum potential. The program provides a timeline during which each fellow develops from an early learner adjusting to a new training environment to a competent nephrologist. There is a focus on career development starting early on in fellowship and throughout. The program is tailored to the individual needs of the trainee and is divided into various tracks (academic, private practice, interventional nephrology, and transplant nephrology tracks) as he/she differentiates. 
• A pocketbook outlining the major concepts of nephrology is provided to each fellow. This Field Guide to the Kidney provides each trainee with a basic structure upon which to develop their fund of knowledge (Think back to your Organic Chemistry course notes!).