Welcome to NephMadness 2013
It’s March, and though the whole country is focused on National Kidney Awareness Month, it is also the start of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Every March people get bracket fever trying to predict the outcomes of the 67 tournament games that crown the National Champion.
In order to help the NCAA build some excitement eAJKD is running its own tournament. We are pitting the greatest achievements in nephrology against each other to determine the greatest nephrology advancement.
Today, on Selection Sunday we are releasing the brackets and seeding. We know there are bubble achievements that missed entry, I’m looking at you CRIC study (we tried to find a place for you, honestly) and how could we snub renal sympathetic nerve ablation? Please air all grievances in the comments below.
Download the brackets as a powerpoint or PDF go through and make your picks. Then email your brackets to NephMadness@cluemail.com or take a picture with your phone and post them to twitter. Remember to tag all tweets #NephMadness
—>Click here to go through the matchups region by region and vote! Follow the link at the bottom of each post to get to the next region
Here is how the tournament will progress for the next three weeks:
- March 17: Selection Sunday! Posts are provided giving background and context for each achievement that made the tournament
- March 22 (Fri): We release the updated brackets with the 32 teams playing for the Sweet Sixteen
- March 26 (Tue): We announce the Sweet Sixteen with a description of how the teams got here and a preview of the mayhem to come. Voting opens up for next 8 battles.
- March 29 (Fri): Release updated bracket with the Elite 8. Voting opens.
- April 2 (Tue): Announce the Final Four! A detailed post on the road to the final four and what to expect in the final matches. Open voting.
- April 9 (Tue): We declare The National Champion!
We encourage everyone to submit their brackets, comment on the post and most of all: vote early, vote often. Have fun and may the best achievement win! Please, no wagering.
Got bracket fever? Click here for the latest on Nephrology Madness!
Where is Kolff? It’s hard to feel bad about HHD not being included when Kolff didn’t make the cut. Actually what is missing is Dr Babbs development of a proportioning dialysate system in 1964 which allowed the production of dialysate from concentrate. The immediate effect was to allow HHD but long term it pioneered an approach that is still being used today
I think it is telling that the ASN imagines the greatest advancements in nephrology to include studies of dialysis but not much on advancements that made dialysis better for the patient. The hollow fiber kidney? Volumetric control? If the Medicare ESRD benefit is a number one seed, then what about the idea of outpatient dialysis itself?
Scribner imagined the shunt and then he imagined the context in which the shunt could be used: the not-for-profit community based outpatient dialysis unit, which, other than the not-for-profit bit is what we have today. The vision was for a treatment that would support rehabilitation and patient quality of life by making dialysis available in community, distinguishing dialysis from the acute treatments provided in a hospital setting. But in the end Scribner’s vision was subsumed by what may be Nephrology’s greatest dialysis related creation: the three day a week incenter hemodialysis Business Model.
The three day a week conventional dialysis Business Model manifests the dialysis world in which we all live. The conventional dialysis Business Model is the unthinking deterministic process against which nephrologists and patients alike struggle to assert our Will. Do nephrologists have free will? Do patients? Or does the dialysis business model constrain our collective will, just as gravity constrains our ability to fly? Read through the brackets imagining a world without the Business Model – what study wouldn’t change? What measure wouldn’t loose importance?
Perhaps though, the Business Model is represented in this NephMadness – the Business Model in the role of the NCAA, constraining and limiting what is possible in service to the true business at hand..
This is a project of eAJKD (official blog of AJKD) and not ASN or AJKD. The views and opinion here are not representative of any such organization. We appreciate Mr. Peckham’s enthusiasm and comments. The purpose of our tournament is to showcase a wide variety of achievements from across nephrology (from research, pharmacology, clinical trials, organizations, laboratory techniques, equations, and dialysis).
The goal of this project was to provide a fun avenue for discussion and education. While it would be possible to field a complete set of 64 teams from advances in dialysis alone, that would short change the breadth of kidney research. The advisory board of eAJKD wants everyone to have fun with this project and learn about all the parts of nephrology.