Overview

The UKKA International Committee was formed in 2004, by Meguid El-Nahas et al, with the main goal of encouraging members to contribute to developing kidney services, infrastructure and expertise in medium and low-income countries, through education, training, mentorship and research.

The UKKA continues to work in collaboration with the ISN to enhance its collaborations with the third world to offer its expertise and share knowledge and experience

• UK Sister Units
• Case study sessions
• Ambassadors
• Medical Trainee Initiative (MTI) scheme
• Research collaborations
• Joint sessions in collaboration at international meetings - UKKW 2024

Specific Aims of the International Committee

• Raise the international profile of UK kidney centres and teams, as teachers, trainers, educators and mentors in developing countries. We already punch well “above our weight,” but can aspire to do even more.

• Attract more overseas trainees to come and train for a period of up to two years in the UK (to provide skills and knowledge to take home) and also give our UK trainees (including established consultants) and allied healthcare workers the opportunities to make valuable contributions by going abroad.

• To “make a real difference” (in both directions) by generating more dynamic and creative links between UK kidney centres and those in developing countries.

Membership

Chair: Professor Sunil Bhandari

• Aimun Ahmed
• Alan Salama
• Arvind Ponnusamy
• Debasish Banerjee
• Gavin Dreyer
• Heidy Hendra
• Ibi Erekosima
• Indy Dasgupta
• Kate Bramham
• Mordi Muorah
• Neil Turner
• Pooja Gudka
• Ben Storey
• Alirio Belchoir
• Charlotte Snead
• Mubarak Janmohd
• Catherine Maina
• Jyoti Baharani

Outputs

Case-Based Meetings:

Interactive Zoom calls are held at least 4 times a year usually at 9 am GMT for 1 hour. We are hoping for an ever-increasing number of colleagues, especially trainees globally, to join these calls, giving their opinions, networking and sharing experiences. We now provide certificates for attendees and speakers to add to their portfolios for CPD.

Our most recent international case call was: Lessons in Resilience from Ukrainians held on 11 March 2025.  This inspiring session focussed on the incredible resilience of Ukrainian dialysis clinics and healthcare professionals during the war - the link to the webinar is available here

Links to previous International case discussions can be found via the video archive on the UKKA Education Hub here

A successful initiative led by the UKKA Specialty Renal Trainees (SpRs) is a half-day educational initiative from a single country involving a high-profile UK speaker.

Our first meeting on Thursday 11th August 2022 was with our Brazil colleagues and was a huge success. It consisted of:

• Moderators: Prof Sunil Bhandari (UK) and Dr Gisele Vajgel (Brazil)
• Tropical diseases and AKI (including snakes bites and venoms) - Prof Emmanuel de Almeida Burdmann, University of São Paulo Medical School.
• Chikungunya and kidney diseases - Prof Denise Costa, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil
• Tropical diseases and kidney transplant - Prof. Tainá de Sandes, Federal University of Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil
• AKI in malaria: Assessing the burden of disease and identifying ways to improve outcomes - Dr Daniel Cooper, Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, UK

A half-day meeting with Australia - Nephrology Down Under & Digital Health was held on the 9th of February 2023 which was moderated by Prof Sunil Bhandari and Dr Sadia Jahan (Australia) was well attended and consisted of:

• Clinical nephrogenetics in Australia - Prof Andrew Mallett (Professor of Medicine, James Cook University, Director of Clinical Research, Townsville University Hospital and THHS, National Director of the KidGen Collaborative and Lead for two Rare Disease Flagships - Australian Genomics Health Alliance)
• Rates and outcomes of kidney failure in Australia - Prof Stephen McDonald (Director of Dialysis at the Central Northern Adelaide Renal and Transplantation Service and Executive Officer of the ANZDATA Registry)
• Pregnancy and Kidney disease - insights from Australian data - A/Prof Shilpanjali Jesudason (Nephrologist, Central Northern Adelaide Renal and Transplantation Service (CNARTS) Chair, CNARTS Clinical Research Group & Clinical Associate Professor, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Adelaide)
• Digital Health is coming - are doctors the major barrier? - Dr Nick Sangala (Consultant Nephrologist at the Wessex Kidney Centre in Queen Alexandra Hospital, Portsmouth, UK and Co-Founder at MyRenalCare)

We met with our colleagues in South Africa on Tuesday 1st August 2024:

• Improving the emergency management of hyperkalaemia: an African perspective - Prof Yazied Clothia (Associate Professor, Division of Nephrology, Stellenbosch University and Tygerberg Hospital)

• The spectrum of HIV-related kidney disease in South Africa) – Prof Nicola Wearne (Head of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at Groote Schuur Hospital and University of Cape Town, and Secretary of the South African Nephrology Society)

• Assessing kidney function in African populations) – Dr June Fabian (Director of Clinical Research, Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre, and Honorary Lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand)

• Genetic susceptibility to kidney disease in people of African ancestry with HIV - Prof Frank Post and Dr Rachel Hung (Consultant Physician in Infectious Diseases at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and honorary Professor of HIV Medicine at King’s College London and Clinical Research Fellow, King’s College London)

Raising the profile

A number of important initiatives are sponsored by the International Society of Nephrology (ISN) and its Core Programmes Committee.

There are many opportunities for UK Nephrologists to get involved in international projects, such as the ISN Mentorship programme and the ISN Emerging Leaders programme. Other initiatives include;

The Sister Renal Centre (SRC) Program

The Sister Renal Centre (SRC) Program is chaired by Dr Chih-Wei Yang from Tiawan and Ruskhana Shroff is the Deputy Chair from the UK. The scheme encourages the pairing of “sister centres” between Supporting Centres/SC (e.g. in the UK) and Emerging Centres/EC (eg in the developing world). The SRC program has 3 levels, from C to A, according to the duration of the sorority, and also the level of activities and achievement. The benefits increase from C to A with support provided by ISN for fellowships, senior scholarships, hands-on training of paramedics and organisation of meetings between the two centres. The ISN also provides travel grants for members of the EC to attend the World Congress of Nephrology, Nexus meetings and the American Society of Nephrology. Other material support includes subscriptions to Kidney International, Nature Clinical Practice Nephrology and the online ISN educational Gateway, leading textbooks in Nephrology and Internal Medicine and educational CDs.

Current UK Sister Centre pairs are listed below. The annual deadline for applications is 30 September.

Level A

• UK (St Georges and Birmingham) – Ghana (Accra and Kumasi) JOINT
• UK (St George’s) – India (Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER)
• UK (Salford Royal Hospital) – Nigeria (University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Level B

• UK (Leicester) – Nigeria (Abuja)
• UK (Birmingham) – Chile (Santiago)
• UK (Stevenage) – Nigeria (Lagos)
• UK (Oxford) – Russia (Saratov) – Belarus (Minsk) TRIO
• UK (Royal London) – Malawi (Blantyre)

Level C

UK (Sheffield) – Bosnia (Sarajevo)

Three successful pairs have graduated from this programme:

• UK (Guy’s) – Romania (Iasi) – 2008
• UK (Cardiff) – China (Nanjing) – 2009
• UK (Oxford) – Belarus (Minsk) – 2011
• UK (Barts Health London) - Malawi - 2019 (ISN Schrier prize winners)
• UK (Salford) - Nigeria (Port Harcourt) - 2022