Today (14 March) is World Kidney Day, an opportunity to advance education in kidney health.
This reflects the ethos of the Donal O’Donoghue Renal Research Centre (DRRC) and its progress since its launch a year ago.
Here we highlight some of the successes of the centre, with a focus on academic improvements and work on improving care pathways for the benefit of patients.
The DRRC:
- has funded protected academic time in the job plans for 15 consultant nephrologists.
- is funding a Clinical Research Fellow to undertake a PhD based upon the nationally important NURTuRE CKD cohort, specifically focusing on the extensive biomarker results.
- is supporting non-medical research advancement by financing nurses and advanced medical practitioners.
- is working closely with several industry partners to improve healthcare pathways for patients with chronic kidney disease.
- is working on the identification of factors that influence progression of CKD in partnership with local Universities. In addition, research is focused upon key NIHR and Kidney Research UK target areas of multimorbidity, cognitive impairment and mental health in chronic kidney disease.
- is developing a robust renal genomics service to benefit our patients.
- has obtained funding from the NIHR Research for Patient Benefit programme to help understand and overcome barriers to research involvement of patients with kidney disease from under-served communities.
- has successfully completed the International Society of Nephrology Sister Renal Centres (ISN-SRC) programme to develop services, education and research at the University Hospital, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Centre Director Professor Phil Kalra also shared the work of the DRRC when he gave the third O’Donoghue lecture at UK Kidney Week, speaking on building careers together through academic advancement.