Where is Homer Smith when we need him?
The patron saint of nephrology created from his intellect an aura that attracted the brightest and the best to become renal physiologists, the precursors of modern nephrologists. His published work in renal physiology was seminal, but as important, his writings on evolution and the kidneys, his examination of the human condition and religion, and his influence on the training of American leaders in academic medicine ...more »
The patron saint of nephrology created from his intellect an aura that attracted the brightest and the best to become renal physiologists, the precursors of modern nephrologists. His published work in renal physiology was seminal, but as important, his writings on evolution and the kidneys, his examination of the human condition and religion, and his influence on the training of American leaders in academic medicine laid a unique and powerful framework for the emerging discipline of nephrology. Unfortunately, we have strayed from that deep romance with the kidneys to more mercantile pursuits such as keeping a lab going by following trends rather than our own passions or by building nephrology practice numbers to fuel our distractions from nephrology. I think that one of our greatest needs in nephrology training is for the current leaders to restore and espouse their love affair with the kidneys in their local institutions and where ever they interact with other human beings - to become evangelical apostles of Smith's great teaching - "Superficially, it might be said that the function of the kidneys is to make urine; but in a more considered view one can say that the kidneys make the stuff of philosophy itself."
May the ASN, the NKF, and the NIDDK work together to restore the kidney to its rightful place in the imaginations of young scientists searching for their life's work.
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