This is one of the current priorities of the UK Kidney Association.
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.
- 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)
- UK (Leicester) – Nigeria (Abuja)
- UK (Birmingham) – Chile (Santiago)
- UK (Stevenage) – Nigeria (Lagos)
- UK (Oxford) – Russia (Saratov) – Belarus (Minsk) TRIO
- UK (Royal London) – Malawi (Blantyre)
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
The Sister Renal Centre program of the ISN pairs existing centres of excellence in developed countries with kidney centres in developing countries to help improve their delivery of high-quality patient care. At present these centres have limited resources and few well-trained staff to deliver good quality and accessible care to kidney patients. Salford Royal is one of just six UK centres appointed to the scheme in January 2017.
The ISN supports the partnership under 3 Categories C, B and A. Each category is supported for two years with the aim of implementing the plan described in the joint application and subsequent progress reports and budget and activity plans. Progression from level C to B and eventually A is based on a successful program in a competitive assessment from various ISN-SRC centres around the world by the ISN-SRC committee.
The vision was based on the ISN-COMGAN PROGRAM. In the mid-1990s the International Society of Nephrology (ISN) created COMGAN (Commission for Global Advancement of Nephrology), whose mission statement is, “To work with local leaders, regional and national societies in poor countries and underprivileged communities to give better renal care.”
Based on this mission statement we set out the following objectives:
- To promote the prevention of chronic kidney disease
- Timely management of acute kidney injury
- Training of manpower and building capacity
- Establishing sustainable renal clinics and dialysis programs
In the last 7 years, we have supported the delivery of education, training and strengthening of kidney service development. Since January 2017 we have organised regular virtual conferences and face-to-face workshops with presentations delivered by Salford Royal clinicians to delegates in Port Harcourt. In addition, there has been exchange visits from the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital to the Salford Royal Hospital for periods between 8 and 12 weeks which was an exciting experience for the doctors who visited. The Salford Royal Hospital kidney team has also been visiting Port Harcourt every year to undertake hands-on training in PD catheter insertion, Placement of Permacath, Ultrasound of the kidney and kidney biopsy.
We have now successfully graduated from the ISN-SRC program and become a mentor centre in January 2024. We are therefore the latest UK renal centre since 2019 to have successfully graduated from the ISN-SRC program and become a mentor centre to form ISN-SRC trio program. The ISN SRC trio program allows graduating (Emerging Centre) EC /SC (Supporting Centre) pairs to remain involved in the program and for the EC to diffuse their know-how to other centres in their region. In this system, the recently graduated EC would form a new pair with another local renal centre and would work with the original SC to support the EC in a SRC Trio.
Please see the ISN Newsletter article here on how the Salford Royal Renal department have supported kidney care in Nigeria.
The Renal Team in the Port Harcourt Renal Centre
The Salford Royal Hospital UK with the University Hospital Port Harcourt Management Team in 2019
The ISN Fellowship Program
The ISN Fellowship Program is chaired by Professor Rümeyza Turan Kazancioglu from Turkey. This scheme provides an opportunity for UK units to host trainees from the developing world for up to 12 months.
Since 2002, the UK has hosted 53 ISN fellows based in 15 centres through the generous support of the ISN and Kidney Research UK. There are presently 6 ISN fellows training in the UK at 6 centres.
The UKKA has agreed to jointly sponsor a new fellowship with the ISN annually from July 2011. The first UKKA-ISN Fellows appointed are:
- Name: Dr Thong Kah Mean
- Number of months: 12
- Home Country: Malaysia
- Home Institution: Hospital Kuala Lumpur
- Home Mentor: Dr. Datuk Ghazali Ahmad
- Host Country: UK
- Host Institution: Sheffield Kidney institute
- Host Mentor: Dr. Albert CM Ong
- Training Subject: Clinical (70%) – gain experience in the investigation and management of patients with inherited kidney diseases (including polycystic kidney disease)
- Name: Dr Ahmad Nasir Nassery
- Number of Months: 12
- Home Country: Pakistan
- Home Institution: Northwest General Hospital and Research Center
- Home Mentor: Dr Arbab Nisar Ahmad Khan
- Host Country: UK
- Host Institution: Hammersmith Hospital
- Host Mentor: Dr Edwina Brown
- Training Subject: General nephrology, hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis
- https://ukkidney.org/health-professionals/education-development/advanced-nephrology-courseName: Dr Ali Shindy
- Number of Months: 12
- Home Country: Egypt
- Home Institution: Wagazig University hospital
- Home Mentor: Essam M Lotfy
- Host Country: UK
- Host Institution: UCL Center for Nephrology
- Host Mentor: Mark Harber
- Training Subject: Kidney Transplantation
There are two annual application deadlines (31 Jan and 31 July). You can also register your interest to host an ISN fellow by recording your unit’s interest in order to be included in the ISN fellowship matching program.
Fellows are eligible to apply for membership of the UK Kidney Association at overseas member rates, to attend the annual KRUK Fellows Day and for sponsored places on the UK Kidney Association Advanced Nephrology course.
The ISN CPC Research Committee
The ISN CPC Research Committee chaired by Arpana Iyengar (India) from 2021.
The Clinical Research Program is one of the ISN’s capacity-building programmes. It intends to build research capacity in low-resource countries and help implement research projects at a local level to detect and manage non-communicable chronic diseases such as CKD, AKI, hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. The Clinical Research Committee also oversees the Scientific Writing Course (SWC) whose aim is to help physicians and researchers from a range of backgrounds and specialisation in nephrology to improve their scientific writing skills to enable them to publish their research work.
This programme supports collaborative research with an emphasis on the detection and management of CKD, hypertension and diabetes in developing countries. Applications for grants up to $20,000 are called for twice a year on the 1st of April and 1st of October.
The ISN CPC CME Programme
The ISN CPC CME Programme brings essential teaching and training to some 14,000 doctors and health care practitioners in the emerging world annually. The CME committee is chaired by Professor Norbert Lameire and is involved in sponsoring educational nephrology programmes in the developing world.
The ISN Educational Ambassador Scheme
This scheme, which is chaired by Dr Gavin Dreyer (UK) seeks to match specific educational needs in developing nations to that of experts from developed nations who can offer their time and expertise on a voluntary basis. Applications can be made directly to the ISN at any time.
ISN Ambassador Programme Educational resources:
Pakistan Point of Care UltraSound (PoCUS) ISN Ambassador Program (youtube.com)
Medical Training Initiative via RCP Edinburgh
Trusts can apply to recruit via the RCPE MTI scheme - please follow this link to find out more.
Details of all ISN International Collaborations can be found here International Collaborations - International Society of Nephrology (theisn.org)
