Nephrology Fellowship Program Missions & Aims
Our Mission
Boston University Medical Center’s Nephrology Fellowship Program is committed to providing a comprehensive and state-of-the-art training in nephrology that allows our fellows to attain the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to become competent nephrologists who adhere to the highest professional and ethical standards of medicine. Our fellows are trained to deliver compassionate patient-centered care to socio-economically and culturally diverse patient population. The fellowship program strives to produce graduates who are well-prepared to advance the frontiers of clinical nephrology, medical education, research, and advocacy. The Nephrology Fellowship Program’s mission statement aligns with the mission of Boston Medical Center, New-England’s largest safety-net hospital. Boston Medical Center’s mission is to provide high quality, comprehensive, culturally relevant health care as an academic teaching hospital.
Program Aims
We aim to provide evidence-based and academically rigorous training in all areas of nephrology to foster the professional development of our trainees as skilled, ethical, and compassionate clinicians who are capable of delivering the highest quality patient care to culturally and socio-economically diverse communities. Our training sites include Boston Medical Center (New England’s largest safety-net hospital and the principal teaching site for Boston University School of Medicine), Boston VA Health System (the referral health system for veterans in New England), and Davita Boston Dialysis (the largest hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis center in Boston). This multifaceted training environment allows for an unparalleled clinical experience for our trainees.
We aim to promote research and scholarly activities relevant to the medical care of our patients and the educational needs of our fellows. Boston University’s Nephrology Section has been at the forefront of cutting-edge research since the 1960s. Some of the most recent discoveries, like the identification of M-type phospholipase A2 receptor as the target antigen in human membranous nephropathy, have transformed nephrology clinical practice around the world. Our program offers exposure to both clinical and basic science research. Clinical research domains are in the areas of kidney biomarkers, health systems, racial disparity in kidney care, acute and chronic kidney disease epidemiology, hypertension, kidney transplantation, amyloidosis, and lupus nephritis. Basic research domains are the areas of glomerular disease, autoimmune disease, acute kidney injury, uremic vascular disease, systemic amyloidosis, kidney cancer, cystic kidney disease, and kidney development and congenital kidney disease.
We aim to provide mentorship and training flexibility to allow for career development opportunities in different areas of clinical nephrology, medical education, and research. The fellowship program offers a clinical and research track for the second year of fellowship. The clinical-track fellows have the option of enriching their training experience by enrolling in one or more of training pathways in areas where Boston Medical Center and Boston University have unique institutional strengths. The available pathways are Onco-nephrology / amyloidosis, Lupus nephritis / auto-immune disease, kidney transplantation, and medical education. For pathways other than medical education, fellows participate in specialized clinics, attend multi-disciplinary clinical and research meetings, and be involved in a small-scale scholarly project. For the medical education pathway, fellows attend workshops on medical education topics and have opportunities for formal teaching with feedback in medical school and medicine residency program. The research track fellows are involved in 2 or more years of research funded through the NIH programs, sectional funds, or individual training grants.