Submit your picks | NephMadness 2017 | @NephMadness | #NephMadness 

Every March since 2013, the AJKD blog transforms into the central headquarters for an evidence based, non-commercial, medical education experiment in leveraging the tools of social media, interactivity, and gamification to teach the latest advances and the most important breakthroughs in nephrology. We call this madness, NephMadness, as an homage to the NCAA Basketball National Championship Tournament, colloquially called March Madness. 

Playing and learning from NephMadness happens in three steps.

1. Explore the rest of this site to learn about the 32 concepts that fill out the field NephMadness. More details below.
2. Follow the links to bracket site where you will fill out your predictions of what concepts are most exciting, or most important, or most impactful, or most deadly, or most something else we haven’t thought of (Yes, we keep it intensionally vague, deal with it).
3. Take to Twitter. Go to Instagram. Hit up Facebook. But cheer for your teams. Follow blog posts and social media rants to refine your picks (if you want) or just yell for your picks.

Starting on March 26th, you will get an e-mail every 2 to 3 days telling you how your picks are doing. Top scores win prizes. 

Here is a helpful infographic to get you started:

OR watch this short video:

Still confused? Check out last year’s tutorial: NephMadness for Dummies.

Back to NephMadness 101…

The tournament has 32 nephrology concepts divided across 8 different topic areas, called regions. Each region has 4 concepts which compete against each other in a single elimination tournament. We have selected content experts from each topic to help us determine the best concepts and vet the information we provide to make sure it is accurate, unbiased, and interesting. The selection committee includes:

1. Biomedical Research: Benjamin D. Humphreys | @HumphreysLab 
2. Diabetic Nephropathy: Anna Burgner | @anna_burgner
3. Dialysis: Jonathan Himmelfarb | @xpotasn
4. Disparities in Nephrology: L. Ebony Boulware | @ebonyboulware
5. Genetics: Matthew G. Sampson | @kidneyomicsamps
6. Glomerulonephritis: Richard J. Glassock
7. History of Nephrology: Neil Turner | @neilturn
8. Nutrition: Kamyar Kalantar-Zadeh | @kamyarkalantarz

The field for NephMadness 2017:

The NephMadness 2017 Bracket:

Click the brackets to download a PDF

A Blue Ribbon Panel will determine the winners of each matchup by the Friday, March 24, 2017 (11:59pm EDT) deadline for entering the contest. All seven members of the Blue Ribbon Panel from 2015 and 2016 are returning and in addition we have added two new members (denoted N). Introducing this year’s NephMadness Blue Ribbon Panel:

• Nancy D. Adams @NancyDayAdams: Chair, ASN Training Program Directors Executive Committee
• Jeffrey S. Berns @Jeff_Berns_POTD: Co-Deputy Editor, AJKD
• Michael J. Choi (N) @Mike_J_Choi: President, National Kidney Foundation
• Scott J. Gilbert Former Education Editor, AJKD
• David S. Goldfarb @weddellite: Chief of Nephrology, NY Harbor VA Medical Center; Clinical Chief of Nephrology, NYU Langone Medical Center
• Stanley Goldfarb (N) Education Editor, AJKD
• Melanie P. Hoenig @melhoenig: Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School
• Roger A. Rodby @NephRodby: Professor, Fellowship Program Director, Rush University Medical Center
• Daniel E. Weiner @dwein003: Policy Forum Editor, AJKD

You might ask, how can I decide a winner between Drosophila and Zebrafish? Don’t get too caught up in the impossibility and just read up on both teams and make a call. The aim of the game is to learn. If you disagree with “winners” please tweet (#NephMadness) or blog about it. This is social media, outrage is our oxygen. 

Prize Categories

• Top score
• Top Med Student score
• Top Resident score
• Top Fellow score
• Top Attending score
• Best Tweeter
• Best Blogger

Prize Update: In addition to the above categories we will be awarding a Group Prize to the group that has the most individuals affiliated with it. To be eligible for this prize, you will be prompted during bracket submission to indicate your group (for example, your affiliation with a particular Fellowship Program/Residency Program/Group Practice/Medical School etc). Please note we will only accept one group affiliation per entry. We hope to encourage a little friendly competition between rival programs, so make sure to get as many people from your program to participate in NephMadness 2017!

Details available here.

Schedule

• March 7: Bracket entry opens
• March 24: Deadline for entering contest
• March 26: First round results | Saturated 16 named
• March 29: Saturated 16 results | Effluent 8 named
• March 31: Effluent 8 results | Filtered 4 named
• April 3: Filtered Four results | Finalists named
• April 5: NephMadness 2017 Champion crowned

Follow the AJKD NephMadness Team (listed below) on Twitter, engage away, and get a head start on claiming the Best Tweeter prize!

• Joel Topf @kidney_boy
• Matt Sparks @Nephro_Sparks
• Tim Yau @Maximal_Change
• Silvi Shah @silvishah
• Anna Burgner @anna_burgner
• Edgar Lerma @edgarvlermamd
• Paul Phelan @paulphel
• Warren Kupin @wkupin
• Swapnil Hiremath @hswapnil
• Nikhil Shah @dr_nikhilshah
• Kenar Jhaveri @kdjhaveri
• Brian Stotter @StotterMD

Updated March 7th to include NephMadness 2017 information such as regions and brackets.