One of the angles that we are trying to push with nephmadness this year is getting residencies and fellowships to participate. This is a great opportunity for a flipped classroom experience. The idea is that residents will review the regions on their own so they have sophisticated understandings of the 32 concepts that make up the field. Here are the scouting reports that make a great place to start learning:
- Hypertension Region: Raymond Townsend
- Palliative Care and Nephrology Region: Christian T. Sinclair
- International Nephrology Region: Professor Vivekanand Jha
- Missteps in Nephrology Region: Mark Rosenberg
- Transplant Nephrology Science Region: Milagros (Millie) Samaniego
- Recreational Drugs and the Kidney Region: Mark A. Perazella
- Pediatric Nephrology Region: John D. Mahan
- Statistics in Nephrology Region: Perry Wilson
Options:
- Assign different learners to represent different regions and deputize them as content experts, with the expectation that they would dig deeper than the scouting reports.
- Have the residents to fill out a draft bracket on paper before they come to the session.
Click to download a PDF of the brackets
The Classroom Experience
When residents come to the session, use the following slide presentation to guide the group through the brackets.
Use consensus to fill out a group bracket. The Tourneytopia site works just fine on a phone, tablet, or laptop.
Reminder, there are no right or wrong answers. The purpose of the exercise is to get people discussing and learning about various concepts in nephrology. When you are filling out the brackets you are making value judgements on ideas that are objectively difficult (impossible?) to value. For the purpose of the game, the winners of each match are determined by a Blue Ribbon Panel of judges. It is a mixture of training program directors, renal physiology/pathophysiology instructors, and journal editors:
- Dan Weiner, Deputy Editor, American Journal of Kidney Diseases
- Scott Gilbert, Education Editor, American Journal of Kidney Diseases
- Nancy Adams, Chair, American Society of Nephrology (ASN) Training Program Directors Executive Committee
- Jeffrey Berns, Professor of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania; Editor-in-Chief, Medscape Nephrology; oh yes, and President of the National Kidney Foundation
- David S. Goldfarb, Chief of Nephrology at the New York Harbor VA Medical Center and the Clinical Chief of Nephrology at the New York University Langone Medical Center
- Melanie Hoenig, Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School
- Roger Rodby, Fellowship Program Director, Rush University Medical Center; ASN Board Review Instructor
We the Blue Ribbon Panel to pick the more exciting, more important, more evidence based, more likely to shape the future of nephrology, the more deadly, or in fewer words, the more important concept.
Last note: You need to get going on this. The entry period ends at midnight on March 23rd (12:59pm EDT). So send out that mass e-mail to your fellows or residents today. Challenge your rival fellowship program across the state now and see who has what it takes to win the big dance.
Fellows,
It is time for NephMadness. This is an annual, online, educational game sponsored by the AJKD Blog. It is March Madness but for nephrology. On [Thursday] at [Noon] we will be filling out a program-wide bracket. Before the session, you need to read the background information on the AJKD Blog (www.ajkdblog.org). If you’d like to submit an individual bracket, it would also be optimal for you to register for the contest here (http://www.tourneytopia.com/ajkd/nephmadness). See you there.
Your training program director
