Faculty Spotlight: Yale PA Online Medical Director Mark Perazella Serves as Program Chair with the NKF

This article was originally posted by the National Kidney Foundation.

I first encountered the NKF and the annual Spring Clinical Meetings when I was a second year clinical fellow at Yale. I attended the meeting in Chicago and presented a poster describing the use of static venous pressures for vascular access surveillance. This was my first foray into presenting a poster at a nephrology meeting. The meeting was tremendous, with a wealth of clinical information. Since then, I have attended numerous NKF Clinicals, so many that I have lost count. I have also been fortunate to participate as a faculty member for several years. I am always impressed by the consistent outstanding nature of the clinical program.

We have already begun working on the 2020 SCM program. The first project has been to spice up the pre-conference course menu by adding completely new courses. Our new additions will add further clinical material to the current classic outstanding line-up of pre-conference courses. We are adding case-based clinical courses on renal pathology for the clinician and diagnostic testing in nephrology.

The NKF SCM meeting provides clinical information to the broad, diverse groups of health care providers working in nephrology. The SCM 2019 was an outstanding program covering both bread and butter topics as well as cutting-edge clinical material in nephrology. As program chair for SCM 2020, along with my co-chair (Mitch Rosner), the NKF SCM education leadership, and the program committee faculty, we hope to bring forth another outstanding clinical meeting that covers a broad array of topics, including those that are hot topics and those with new cutting edge findings. On a personal note, one of the most enjoyable parts of my role as a nephrologist and educator is interacting with students, residents, fellows, colleagues, and other healthcare professionals in the field of nephrology. The NKF SCM is the ideal place to interact with all of these people—teaching and learning from each other.

In addition to bringing new courses on renal pathology for the clinician and diagnostic testing in nephrology, the SCM program leadership wants to make the meeting increasingly interactive with lots of case-based discussions, interesting and controversial topics for debate sessions, cutting edge clinical research discussions, and interactive lunch sessions. We hope to keep the attendees engaged and interested in the clinical material presented.

1) The meeting’s focus on clinical topics is paramount; 2) The transmission of clinical information from pre-conference courses, innumerable clinical sessions, and interesting and educational poster presentations is top-notch; and 3) The collaboration of all players in nephrology—physicians, advanced care providers, nurses, dieticians, and social workers is critical for the care for patients’ with kidney disease, and this meeting uniquely highlights that.

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Citation for this content: Yale School of Medicine Physician Assistant Online Program