Learning In Lovely Location

Meetings, odds, and ends fill the day as I ready myself for the first trip of 2010. Tomorrow I will flee Omaha and its never-melting snow for a conference on continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT). I have taken on responsibility for a program at Children’s Hospital and Medical Center of Omaha, and immersing myself in the topic for 3.5 days seemed a great way to get up to speed. The fact that the meeting is on Coronado Island, near San Diego, during the last dreary week of February is completely a coincidence and had nothing to do with my desire to attend.

If you believe the location of this meeting did not influence my decision to attend, I would like to sell you the Coronado bridge (see photo).

CRRT has become the default treatment for most intensive care unit patients with acute kidney injury (AKI). It makes sense that if you unstable enough for an ICU, then you are unstable enough to not tolerate intermittent hemodialysis. AKI is the focus of a special section in the just-published February issue of ASN Kidney News, and an article by Ashita Tolwani (starting on page 12) focuses on this very issue.

The role of CRRT in AKI seems fairly clear; we are currently exploring the best way to deliver it to patients ranging from 10 to 300 pounds. Various options for hardware exist, and their relative advantages and disadvantages must be explored. CRRT may also be able to play a role in sepsis and other conditions, and I will attend sessions discussing these cutting-edge issues.

For the rest of the week my posts will deal with CRRT, packing for such a trip, and the lovely weather in Coronado. I will be in a hotel conference room from  7am till 7pm while I’m there, but at least when I look out the window I will not see dirty snow.