Tackling CKD in South America
Last week I went to South America, and I was in Bolivia and Chile. In Santiago, I met Luis Fernando Michea, at the Chronic Kidney Disease Research Center (CKDRC).
This is a research facility where physician researchers, pharmacologists, and basic scientists are working together in really close contact on a number of projects. Their efforts are focused on identifying the causes and developing early detection, prevention and treatment of CKD.
They combine several, different expertise in one single task: preventing progression of CKD. Luis Fernando told me that efforts have been oriented too much on renal replacement therapy rather than on prevention.
I was very much impressed by their model of integrating different competences and I believe that is a model not only for other countries in Latin America, but for many other countries in the world, even in the developed ones.
