John Pickering

Dr John Pickering is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Otago, Christchurch and a Senior Research Fellow in Acute Care in the Emergency Department of Christchurch hospital. John aims to blog on science, health, and occasionally political issues. He believes publicly funded science should be made public - so publishes regular "cheesecake files" about his own research. John is on Twitter @kiwiskinz

Cheesecake files: Just how deadly is it? - Kidney Punch

Nov 27, 2014 •

Everyone said it did, but how did they know and by how much?  Statements like “The development of AKI [Acute Kidney Injury] after CPB [Cardiopulmonary Bypass Surgery] is associated with a significant increase in infectious complications, an increase in length of hospital stay, and greater mortality.” (Kumar & Suneja, Anaesthesiology 2011 14(4):964) are common place […]

Can Doctors and Nurses help Dialysis patients recover? - Kidney Punch

Nov 07, 2014 •

In the case of dialysis dependent acute kidney injury patients this is a question which Dr Dinna Cruz  and colleagues (University of California San Diego) are asking and seeking opinions from both nephrologists and non-nephrologist doctors and nurses involved in care of dialysis patients.  It was a question which arose out of discussions at this […]

A funding model that works (for me) - Kidney Punch

Sep 26, 2014 •

I’ve been a strong critic of the bias towards project rather than people based funding in public grants for science research.  Now, I celebrate being the recipient of people based funding thanks to a combined initiative of the Emergency Care Foundation, the Canterbury Medical Research Foundation, and the Canterbury District Health Board. What has transpired is … Continue reading →

It’s all about the math, dummy! - Kidney Punch

Sep 18, 2014 •

No one understands the electoral maths of the NZ electoral system including the electoral commission apparently. Last night I put the latest figures from the “Poll of Polls” into the electoral commission calculator and I discovered the calculator was broken! I put the figures in with United Future winning one electorate seat, but when it crunched … Continue reading →

World Science Week: Where are we in the world? - Kidney Punch

Aug 26, 2014 •

It’s World Science Week.  So, where are we in the science world?  One measure showing our commitment to science is our expenditure on R&D.  If we compare ourselves to the other OECD countries, we see that we are right at the bottom of the pile at 1.27% of GDP and have recently been overtaken by Hungary. … Continue reading →

Policy our lives depend on: Health research in election 2014 - Kidney Punch

Aug 21, 2014 •

We all care about health – ours, our family’s, and even that of one or two politicians (perhaps). We also care that the 15 billion dollar annual health budget is spent on health care that works.  I contend that both these cares are only as good as the health research that underpins the treatments we receive.  Therefore, … Continue reading →

HRC success in Christchurch - Kidney Punch

Jun 09, 2014 •

The Health Research Council announced Programme and Project grant recipients.  Here’s the list from the Christchurch campus of the University of Otago in which I get a brief mention :).  If others have abstracts of successful grants they’d like posted on this blog, then please let me know. *****Update: It’s come to my attention that this … Continue reading →