John Pickering • Aug 05, 2015 •
“His mega-watt smile could power the Auckland grid” was how Herald columnist Wynne Gray so eloquently described this morning Joeli Vidiri after his kidney transplant. In the meantime across the Tasman my long term colleague and head of Nephrology at Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney, Prof Zoltan Endre, is celebrating 50 years of the […] … Read More
John Pickering • Jul 03, 2015 •
The social and professional media have had a field day with Sir Tim Hunt’s comments concerning women in the lab. Juxtaposed with that in New Zealand has been a very earnest discussion about the gagging of scientists. The purpose of this post is simply to highlight that the two are not unrelated and how we […] … Read More
John Pickering • Jun 19, 2015 •
New Zealand is the home of Home Haemodialysis and Christchurch the hub. Sending people home to dialyse is not only more convenient for them and more cost effective, but also has been shown to reduce mortality. However, is this reduction in mortality sustained across changes in dialysis medicine over time? This is an important question […] … Read More
John Pickering • May 22, 2015 •
Last night I had the honour to speak following the AGM of the Canterbury Medical Research Foundation (CMRF). The CMRF are a fantastic organisation I’ve talked about before. They are also one of three sponsors of my current research fellowship. What I talked about was volunteers and clinical trials. Two days ago the world celebrated Clinical […] … Read More
John Pickering • Mar 11, 2015 •
“In ancient times the Persian philosopher Avicenna [Ibn Sina] noted that urine may be retained in crisis of fever (s393) and prescribed hot oil baths (s413)(1). Unfortunately, apart from the supportive therapy of dialysis, there has been little progress since in the treatment of acute kidney injury (AKI).”(2) Given that getting AKI at least doubles […] … Read More
John Pickering • Feb 27, 2015 •
There is little more precious than our health and that of those we love. “Research saves lives” is Canterbury Medical Research Foundation’s (CMRF) proudly held motto. The CMRF has been supporting the people of Canterbury for 55 years thanks to the generosity of Cantabrians. In that time they have funded more than $22 million in grants. Yesterday […] … Read More
John Pickering • Feb 03, 2015 •
Originally posted on AJKD Blog:Dr. John Pickering Acute kidney injury (AKI) following cardiothoracic surgery has been well reported in the nephrology literature with numerous studies published in the last decade, although the definition of AKI was variable in many of these studies. In a recent article published in AJKD, Pickering et al perform a… … Read More
John Pickering • Jan 15, 2015 •
For the second time in a week I have removed the word “significant” from a draft manuscript written by a colleague of mine in clinical medicine. In a significantly p’d I wrote about the myth of significance – that is about the ubiquitous use of the term “significant” in the medical literature to mean a […] … Read More
John Pickering • 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 […] … Read More
John Pickering • 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 […] … Read More