(upbeat instrumental music)
- [Narrator] Welcome to the Division of Nephrology,
Hypertension, and Kidney Transplantation at UCI.
- The Division of Nephrology and hypertension
at UC Irvine School of Medicine
is committed to providing exemplary care
for patients with a variety of kidney diseases.
All of our faculty members
who are board certified internal medicine,
as well as nephrology, are highly skilled in the diagnosis
and management of the broad range of kidney diseases.
In fact, a number of our faculty members
have been listed repeatedly
in the Best Doctors in America,
America's Top Physicians, Top Doctors California,
Best Doctors, and Orange County Physicians of Excellence.
Our fellows receive extensive experience
in clinical nephrology, including one-on-one mentoring
in clinical skill development
during inpatient consultation
and outpatient dialysis rounds.
Our training program
provides extensive didactic core lectures,
(mumbling) seminars, and journal clubs.
The division provides continuing education
for community physicians and the medical
and nephrology community worldwide
by participating in or organizing education
and conferences and publishing original papers
or tutorials and review articles,
and by contributing chapters to various textbooks.
- We are very proud of our rigorous training program
that prepares our fellows extremely well
for a career in nephrology.
Our inpatient dialysis services provides hemodialysis,
peritoneal dialysis, and CRT to patients
with AKI or ESRD.
The variety of pathology and complexity
of diseases we encounter in counsel service
adds to the richness of our fellows' training experience.
Our nephrology teaching clinic
serves a diverse patient population in Southern California.
The clinic is unique
in that the patient panel is especially concentrated
with patients with glomerulonephritis
and rare kidney diseases.
Our fellows receive excellent training
in home dialysis modalities during their dialysis rotations.
Our home program has grown significantly
in the last few years,
and now 20% of our ESRD panel
are on home dialysis modalities,
including PD and home HD.
Last but not least,
we're fortunate that we have supportive
and dedicated attendings who help ensure learning
and success in a friendly environment.
- Here at UCI Nephrology, we are proud,
not only to train physician scientists,
but some of the best trained
and clinically sound nephrologists
in the Southern California area.
Our fellows have unparalleled exposure to (mumbling) disease
with training and expertise
in our core training faculty
to comfortably diagnose these rare diseases
in our population with a very high rate
of glomerular disease presentations.
Research is ongoing and is active
as investigator initiated trials
and industry sponsored trials.
Complement blockade is becoming a strong expertise
of a certain set of faculty here at UC Irvine.
We present here the ideas of incremental dialysis,
digestive health, fiber intake, cancer prevention,
and the natural prevention of atherosclerotic heart disease
by the control of dietary intake.
Our faculty are nutritional therapy experts
and increasingly provide cutting edge guidelines
and write many of the reviews and the scientific papers
that help guide the science of renal nutrition
with our chief Doctor (mumbling)
being foremost among us.
UCI is an emerging go-to center
for collaborations, statewide and nationwide,
with other well-renowned academic centers.
UCI is increasingly providing clinical trial opportunities
that serve the Orange County and Southern California area
in very diverse and cutting edge new fields
- Here at UCI,
we are the fastest growing kidney transplant program
in the country.
This past year, we did over 125 organ transplants
and we're looking to grow that number
to a much much higher in the years to come.
We recently got an SRTR score outcome score
of five out of five,
which is amongst the top in the country.
Not only do we care about growth of volume,
but we care about how well these patients do.
So having strong outcomes is imperative
for all transplant programs.
There's nothing more exciting
than following along a patient's journey
going from dialysis to kidney transplant.
At UCI, you'll have a ton of that experience,
not only in your monthly inpatient experience,
but also in your outpatient rotations
on kidney transplantation and their weekly clinics.
You're going to learn the exciting world
of managing these patients
and what a rewarding feeling it is to see them
along this path.
In your two year fellowship at UCI,
you'll be assigned a faculty mentor,
but aside from your own faculty mentor,
the rest of us are all here for you.
You'll never be alone.
You'll always have a faculty member
that's by your side and willing to put in the work
alongside you.
And that's really important.
You have a young faculty that really care
about your wellbeing and your education in these two years.
- My name is Sam.
I am a current second year fellow
at the UC Irvine Nephrology Fellowship Program.
During my experience here at UC Irvine,
I've had a great opportunity to learn
through many cases.
With the amount of volume that we see
and the diverse pathology,
I feel very confident and prepared to practice nephrology
once I graduate from here.
- So far, my experience at UCI as a new fellow
has been very challenging.
We see a lot of patients.
There's a great diversity of pathology.
The best thing is the comradery
between the specialties, the research opportunities,
mentorship that's available.
- Finally, our fellows and faculty take full advantage
of living in Southern California with beautiful beaches,
abundance of outdoor activities,
and rich cultural experience.
Many of our trainees joined practices
or academic institutions locally after graduation.
We are truly blessed
with this wonderful UCI Nephrology family.
We look forward to having you be part
of this growing family.
(upbeat instrumental music)
- Hi, my name's Joline Chen.
I'm the Chief of Nephrology Section in Long Beach VA.
Long Beach VA is an important partner
with UC Irvine and our fellows tend to spend
about half of their training at the VA.
The VA is a special place to work.
Why is it special?
It's the people.
The people we work with are truly wonderful and friendly.
We're a small close-knit group,
and we truly care about one another
and want to help each other out whenever we can.
In dialysis, we work as a team of dialysis nurses,
technicians, dietician, and social worker,
and all of us work very closely together
to pick the best care of our veterans.
Our team also want to make sure to welcome our fellows
into part of our family and to make it a wonderful place
for the fellowship training.
Our attendings come from a variety of backgrounds.
Some are world famous researcher,
many have won athletes and teacher awards,
and all of us are strong clinicians.
All of us love to teach
and that we take every opportunity to do so,
whether it's bedside, dialysis unit, clinic,
or in your lab.
Whether it's clinical nephrology, academic research,
or just trying to find the right career path,
we're here for our fellows.
What we want is to provide excellent training education
so our fellows will become successful
and confident nephrologists when they graduate.
Thank you.
- Hi, my name's Sam Tonthat,
a current second year fellow at the Long Beach VA.
One of my favorite parts
about working here is that we have really great attendings.
It's like a close knit family here with only four of them.
One of my favorite things about working
at the VA is that our (mumbling) staff
and dialysis nurses are very personal.
What I will take away from my training here
at the Long Beach VA is learning how to take care
of chronic kidney disease, outpatient care management.
I think if you come to the VA,
you're going to enjoy your experience.
Here, we have a great work-life balance.
- Hello, my name is Hamid Moradi
and I'm the Site Director
for the Nephrology Fellowship Program at Long Beach VA.
First off, I want to commend you
for choosing to pursue a career in nephrology,
which in my opinion is one of the most interesting,
important, and fulfilling areas of medicine.
To be fair, I'm somewhat biased,
but I think you and I have that in common,
and that is why you're watching this video.
To tell you a little bit about myself.
My postgraduate training has been done at UC Irvine
and Long Beach VA.
Since then, I've stayed on as faculty and researcher
at both institutions.
So as someone who's been here at Long Beach VA since 2003,
I feel like I'm in a pretty good position to tell you
about all the wonderful training opportunities
that Long Beach VA has afforded me and will afford you
as a resident fellow or a post-doctoral fellow.
So Long Beach VA Health Care System is part
of VISN 22 of the Veterans Health Administration
in the Department of Veterans Affairs.
It's located in Long Beach, California,
on grounds that I consider it to be beautiful,
picturesque, sunny,
a really wonderful place to work.
Medical center provide service to our veterans population
and caring for the veterans has been one
of the most fulfilling parts of my medical career.
In the nephrology section, we help diagnose
and manage a wide range
of renal conditions and common things
such as renal complications of diabetes and hypertension,
to complicated (mumbling)
and complicated post-transplant cases.
We also have a large outpatient hemodialysis program
where you'll have an opportunity to get an in-depth training
about management of patients with chronic incisional disease
on maintenance hemodialysis.
This will be done in a multi-disciplinary fashion,
so you will be part of a multi-disciplinary team
with dialysis techs and nurses, nutritionists,
and a social worker, as well as pharmacists.
We also work closely with our interventional radiology
and last, the surgery colleagues.
So this sort of multi-disciplinary environment
is highly conducive to you getting
an in-depth detailed training
and understanding of all the intricacies
of outpatient and long-term hemodialysis care.
We also have an acute inpatient dialysis program
where you get to learn about all the different aspects
and facets of inpatient dialysis care
and acute dialysis management.
All of these programs are run by our own faculty,
so not only do you learn
about the science of dialysis delivery,
you'll also get a detailed understanding
of the administrative aspects of running a dialysis program,
which is an important area of expertise
for all nephrologists and a skill set
that you need to develop during your fellowship.
We have an outpatient and CKD clinic program,
as well as a post-transplant clinic.
We follow veterans who've had kidney transplantation
in the VA system or outside the VA system.
And in our CKD Clinic,
we diagnose, manage, and follow patients
with wide range of chronic kidney diseases.
We have an inpatient consult service
where we see all the acute kidney injury patients
and manage acute kidney injury,
as well as any other renal condition that needs attention
of nephrologists in the hospital.
So aside from the bedside rounds
and bedside teaching that you get
with every patient that you see,
we also have a didactic teaching program
with Friday morning conferences that are typically run
by either faculty, pharmacists, or our fellows.
We cover a wide range of topics,
including the latest clinical trials,
of core topics in nephrology,
and sometimes we even do board review questions
and board review courses in our Friday morning conferences.
From a research perspective,
the Department of Veterans Affairs
places a significant importance
on research and innovation,
not only to advance the care of our veterans,
but also to advance medicine in general.
You will have an opportunity to tap
into ongoing projects of which we have many,
or you can forge your own path
and create your own research project
in an area that you're interested in,
or the novel area that no one has ever worked on
but you would like to work in.
In either case, we're here to work
with you and support you reach your research goals.
Most of our fellows go on to present their research work
at a national and international meetings,
including the annual meetings for ASN
and National Kidney Foundation.
Also, many of our fellows
have published their research findings
in peer reviewed journals.
Overall, I think Long Beach VA is a wonderful place to train
in any area of medicine, but especially in nephrology.
And that has been my own personal experience.
I hope you found the information in this video to be helpful
and useful to you, but don't hesitate to contact us
if you have any further questions.
We look forward to meeting you
and hopefully working with you in the near future.
(upbeat instrumental music)