Who We Are

We believe childhood kidney disease can be seen as a continuum from prevention, to acute kidney injury (AKI) or disease, to chronic kidney disease (CKD), to dialysis, to transplantation, to rehabilitation.  Every member of the Division is comfortable providing care at any point along this continuum.  The Division has grown from 4 to 11 faculty in the past 10 years.  All faculty are expected to participate in the clinical programs of the Division.  Two senior members see only outpatients.  All of the remaining nine faculty attend on the very busy in-patient service which has an average census of 16-20 total patients, two-thirds of whom are consults.  The Division has a reputation among clinical services for ready availability, cheerful collegiality and tireless attention to detail.  All members of the Division are coached on the etiquette of shared decision making and the importance of maintaining the Division’s reputation for quality service.  Nephrology is a procedure-heavy service, offering CRRT, acute and chronic hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis, and native and transplanted kidney biopsies.  Nephrology also provides supervision of therapeutic apheresis for the entire Department.  All faculty are expected to maintain skills in all of these procedures, which is made relatively easy by the high volumes.  For example, the service does nearly 150 kidney biopsies each year and has patients on CRRT near continuously in all three  critical care units.  Chronic out-patient hemodialysis is provided in a 6-station hemodialysis unite located within the hospital.  This unit provides the only ultra-pure dialysis water available in a US pediatric dialysis unit.

Scott Sutherland, MD
Division Chief

Dr. Scott Sutherland leads our program in electronic medical record-enabled research.  His primary research interest is acute kidney injury and is a co-investigator in the NIH-funded Nephrotoxic-Injury Negated by Just-in-Time Action (NINJA) randomized clinical trial.