September - October 2009

Congratulations to Dr. Carmen Peralta who was awarded the 2009 School of Medicine Irene Perstein Award for outstanding junior women clinician scientists.

Dr. Stephen Gluck was interviewed as an outside expert in an Aug 17, 2009 CNNhealth.com story about new theories on Mozart's death.(http://news.ucsf.edu/media-coverage/details/cnnhealth-quotes-ucsf-nephrologist-in-story-on-mozarts-death/ and http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/08/17/mozart.strep.throat/index.html)

July - August 2009

UCSF Nephrology was listed at #10 in the category of "Kidney Disorders" in the latest "US News & World Report" July 2009 ranking of hospitals hospitals ( http://health.usnews.com/health/best-hospitals/kidney-disorders-hospital-rankings/).  UCSF Medical Center came in overall as the #7 hospital in the survey.

Earlier in the year, the UCSF School of Medicine ranked #5 among all medical schools according to "US News & World Report". We were #3 among all internal medicine programs in the country (internal medicine subspecialties were not further analyzed). )(http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/ best-graduate-schools/top-medical-schools/internal-medicine).

May - June 2009

Congratulations to Katy Rau is who has been promoted to be Division Administrator for Allergy and Pulmonary in addition to Nephrology. Katy will maintain her current office in C443. A search is actively underway for an Assistant Division Administrator for Nephrology, Allergy and Pulmonary.

Congratulations to Kerry Cho who has been selected to be a member of the American Society of Nephrology Training Program Directors Executive Committee for a 10 year term.

March - April 2009

The Mount Zion outpatient dialysis unit is getting a makeover. The $144,000 in renovations include fresh paint, new flooring, new TVs and dialysis chairs. The work has already begun and is expected to be completed in May.

UCSF Nephrology has been slected to receive a "Champions of Hope Award from the National Kidney Foundation of Northern California and Northern Nevada. Awards will be presented at "A Notable Evening" to be held 5:30pm, Thursday, April 23 at Yoshi's Jazz Club in San Francisco.

January - February 2009

Dr. Kirsten Johansen is the co-chair of the ASN San Francisco "Renal Weekend." This is designed to review core nephrology topics from Renal Week 2008 and will be held February 21-22, 2009

Dr. Kathleen Liu will be the ASN "Renal Weekend" faculty member reviewing all topics related to "Acute Kidney Injury" in San Francisco as well as Dallas, TX.

November - December 2008

Congratulations to Dr. Lynda Frassetto whose recent proposal to the UCSF Resource Allocation Program (RAP) General Pilot Award in HIV/AIDS has been selected for funding.   The proposal title is “Raltegravir –Transplant Immunosuppressant Interactions: Predicting the Unexpected.”

Dr. Anitha Toke was recently appointed Chair of Medical Advisory Board of National Kidney Foundation of Northern California (San Francisco region) for the 2008-2009 year.

Drs. Kirsten Johansen and Kathleen Liu are both serving on the NKF 2009 Spring Clinical Meetings Program Committee. Dr. Johansen is the Program Co-Chair. 

Dr. Steve Tomlanovich is a member of the American Transplant Congress 2009 Joint Executive committee.

September - October 2008

Congratulations to Dr. Flavio Vincenti who recently finished a successful year as president of the American Society of Transplant.  Please read his 2008 Presidential Address here:  http://www.a-s-t.org/index2.cfm?Section=events&Sub1Section=past_meeting_archives&content=vincenti_pres_address.html. 

Dr. Peter Haggie was recently awarded an R01 grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) for research on "Live-Cell Imaging of CFTR Oligomerization, Trafficking and Interactions." 

Congratulations to Mount Zion faculty and staff.  The latest released mortality statistics for the Mount Zion Outpatient Dialysis Unit show that our standardized mortality ratio (SMR) was 0.65 i.e. the mortality rate was 35% less than expected.  Only 7% of dialysis facilities in the United States had an SMR lower than 0.65.  Credit must go to the nephrology faculty members who round at Mt. Zion Dialysis (Drs. Lynda Frassetto, Mei Zhu Peng, Manju Tamura), the dialysis unit nurse managers (Jim Heilman and Jean Bruzgul), the medical director (Dr. Kerry Cho), the nurses and technicians, the nephrology fellows, and our vascular surgery, interventional radiology and other colleagues who help care for our patients.

July - August 2008

Dr. Chi-yuan Hsu, Associate Professor in Residence, was named permanent Chief of the Nephrology Division at UCSF (Parnassus/Mt Zion). The official announcement was made to the Division by Dr. Talmadge King, Chair of the Department of Medicine, on Wednesday, June 25th. Dr. Hsu, who came to UCSF in 1999, has been interim Chief for the past academic year. He is a graduate of Yale College, Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health. He did his Internal Medicine Residency at Beth Israel Hospital (Boston) and Nephrology Fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Hsu’s research focuses on the epidemiology and complications of chronic kidney disease.

Dr. Denise Marciano is the recipient of the National Kidney Foundation Young Investigator's Award. She was also recently notified that she has been awarded a K08 career development award from the NIDDK.

Dr. David Pearce received the American Society of Nephrology's New Directions Award. The grant is given to provide seed money for high impact novel directions in established investigators' labs. Dr. Pearce is currently exploring the novel aldosterone-regulated gene, GILZ.

Jessica Serbus and Marienna Murch received the School of Medicine Staff Achievement and Recognition (STAR) awards from the Department of Medicine. This program empowers supervisors and managers with robust tools for rewarding and honoring staff efforts.

May - June 2008

Congratulations to the entire staff and faculty associated with the Renal Practice for receiving the first annual “Voice of the Patient- Rising Star Award”.  This award is granted to honor the dedication to a patient centered culture demonstrated by achieving the greatest improvement in patient satisfaction ratings among all outpatient departments (over a two year period).  The Renal Practice was formally recognized at the Seventh Annual Medical Center Honors and Awards Celebration on Tuesday, May 6.  

March - April 2008

Congratulations to Nisha Bansal, MD who received an AKF fellowship award.

Congratulations to Andy Choi, MD who received a K23 award.

Congratulations to Carmen Peralta, MD who received a K12 award.

January - February 2008

A former patient who had a kidney transplant done 26 years ago at UCSF called our academic office and just wanted to let us know that she is still in perfect health.  The surgeons she had were Dr. Oscar Salvatierra and Dr. Nicholas Feduska.  She is thankful to the donor and also wonders if there are ever any inquiries on the donor’s end as to how kidney transplant patients are doing.  She doesn’t need to know who donated it, but just in case they ever wondered, she is doing fine.

From 2007

Award EB00415 of Alan Verkman, MD, PhD has been awarded MERIT status by the NIBID (National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering). He will now hold two MERITs concurrently. The other one is R37 DK035124 from NIDDK which is in year eight of ten.

Kirsten Johansen, MD was asked to be on the ASN Program Committee for the 2008 annual meeting.