Online training course strengthens nephrology practice in Latin America
The Sociedad Latinoamericana de Nefrología e Hipertensión and Sociedad de Transplante de América Latina y El Caribe came together last year for an online course about immunopathology and immunointervention, gathering some 600 participants from Latin America, Europe and the United States. The course was supported by ISN.
ISN President Giuseppe Remuzzi gave a closing lecture and actively joined discussions. The course took place over two months and every week focused on a new issue within transplantation and glomerular disease.
“It definitively widened the scope of participants, reaching nephrologists from far-away areas who do not otherwise have the chance or the finances to take part,” explains Francisco González-Martínez, Vice President of the Sociedad de Transplante de América Latina y el Caribe.
This course was coordinated from Montevideo, Uruguay by members of the Centro de Nefrología del Hospital de Clínicas and Universidad de la República with the participation from all the reference centers in the region. The Uruguayan Center has a successful seven-year Sister Center Program with the Hospital Universidad Bellvitge Barcelona. The partnership helped Montevideo make progress in transplantation and clinical nephrology.
“The Hospital de Clinical is the only center responsible for training postgraduates in Nephrology in Uruguay. Continuous education has a great influence on the future of nephrology and has really brought the region together,” explains Oscar Noboa, Secretary of the Sociedad Latinoamericana de Nefrología e Hipertensión.
Building equal relations across Latin America and making nephrology centers self-sufficient play an important role in developing nephrology in the region. There is a great inequity in the access to renal replacement therapy (RRT), dialysis and transplantation in Latin America. The median RRT prevalence is 600 patients per million population (pmp). There is also a considerable lack of nephrologists across Latin America where the average number is 14 nephrologists pmp.
For more information about the ISN Continuing Medical Education Program, CLICK HERE. This article appears in the February 2014 edition of ISN News, CLICK HERE.
