A pinch of salt - A podcast by ERA

Being a young doctor must be one of the toughest positions a person can find themselves in. The key to success in medicine is experience which is the one thing you cannot have as a young doctor. That is why having a mentor, or mentors is essential. However, being in contact with your peers is also important. Sharing trials and tribulations with someone your own age is not only comforting but also informative. The world is a global place and contact with young professionals around Europe might be just the thing you need. That’s why we would like to encourage you, dear young nephrologist, to become an active member of the Young Nephrologists’ Platform: the YNP. Find out how you can join the numerous projects available, to gain new experiences, to grow as a person and as a doctor. Have a listen to our new podcast with Orsolya Cseprekál, the current Chair of the YNP to find out more. 

You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Wise words from Joni Mitchell that you might find in her famous song Big Yellow Taxi. People who have never had problems sleeping have absolutely no idea how difficult life becomes when you can’t sleep properly or well enough. It’s literally a nightmare, only you're awake, and it seems like it lasts forever. Unfortunately, this nightmare is incredibly common in CKD patients, particularly in patients with end-stage kidney disease. It’s up to us to identify these patients, because if we don’t do it, it’s unlikely others will. We owe it to them because nowadays we have therapies that can work and help people sleep again. Let’s help people sleep again. Do you want to know how? Learn how to tackle sleep disorders in the podcast with Mark Unruh, a leading expert in sleep disorders in patients with CKD. Who knows, maybe this information will help your life at some point. 

The more time is passing, the more we find the importance and the density of the functional interconnections between the kidney and the heart. If you treat one of them, you might potentially improve the other and the number of therapeutic agents with combined cardiorenal efficacy ever increases. We will have the honor and the pleasure of discussing cardiorenal medicine with Patrick Mark from the University of Glasgow, United Kingdom. A specialist on this matter in a most exciting session registered face to face during the ERA Stockholm Congress. Do not hesitate to join us on this fascinating journey of interconnection between the kidney and the heart. 

Every nephrologist knows about serum creatinine, eGFR, albuminuria, proteinuria. We use them to assess disease activity. But do we really assess disease activity with them? eGFR can be low and albuminuria or proteinuria can be high because of chronic and potentially irreversible changes, like glomerulosclerosis and tubulointerstitial fibrosis, changes that might not be amenable to treatment. How do we know which patient needs more treatment if what we are picking up with established markers might be fibrosis. Well, these questions might become old-fashioned quickly. Let us introduce you to DKK3, a new urine biomarker which could finally identify patients with ongoing kidney injury that might benefit from more treatment. Have a listen to our new ERA podcast with Danilo Fliser, explaining what DKK3 is and why we should all probably begin measuring it. 

Most of us have gone to medical universities to become doctors, and physicians, to be the people who diagnose and treat patients. At some point, however, we all realize that we’re also the ones that are supposed to do the medical research which does not come naturally to many of us. If you can relate to what has just been said, we have the right answers for you, ladies and gentlemen. Have a listen to our new ERA podcast with the editors of NDT and CKJ, Hans-Joachim Anders and Jürgen Floege. Listen to them being honest about what kind of research they would like to see in journals and how to make your work more presentable. The amount of pearls shared could fill a whole necklace. You don’t believe me? Check it out.

Let's start with a quiz. Which was the most research in the World on Google for 2023? Yes, of course. Artificial intelligence. A super hot topic. Things are going ready fast, and the text, the videos, the images, the books but what about the medicine? What about the nephrology? Is it coming? Is it already here? If you want to know more about it, check us out in the ERA podcast with Roser Torra, ERA President coming from Fundació Puigvert, Spain.