We would first like to congratulate you on your interest in nephrology. It is a challenging but wonderful specialty with many rewards that are often overlooked and underestimated. Nephrologists are often the ones most trusted by their patients as well as by physicians of other specialties to guide them through complex decisions that cut across the entire field of medicine. The nephrology attendings in our program are enthusiastic and share a passion for the specialty. One of the things that makes our program special is the close one to one interaction that attendings have with our fellows in training. Attendings work as a team with the fellow and see patients side by side with them on a daily basis. The relationship we strive to have with all our trainees is one of trust and respect as we seek to be role models in their training. At the same time you will find that we are an informal, fun and light-hearted group to work alongside. Our division serves a large and diverse population of chronic kidney disease patients of all stages and on dialysis. We care for these patients at three modern state of the art hemodialysis centers which give our fellows the best clinical training possible. We do not overwhelm our fellows with large inpatient service responsibilities. We believe that the right balance between service and education is very important to learning and enjoying nephrology.
Another asset of our program is our strong relationship with the Mount Sinai Hospital with access to its abundant resources. Our fellows have an intensive peritoneal dialysis experience at Mount Sinai Hospital and a one month renal transplant rotation each year at the nationally renowned Recanati/Miller Transplant Institute. Mount Sinai offers an ASN/AST accredited Transplant Nephrology Fellowship for those interested in further training. In addition to the excellent clinical nephrology conferences that take place at our hospital our fellows are able to take part in clinical and research conferences televised from the Mount Sinai Hospital.
Other opportunities available from our program include an additional one year of critical care training leading to double board certification in nephrology and critical care. We also support elective training and experience in interventional nephrology with our interventional radiologists at Mount Sinai West.
All of our fellows have told us that they greatly enjoyed the fellowship and felt extremely well prepared to practice independently after graduation. Perhaps the best evidence that we are a great place to train and to work is that a number of former fellows have stayed on with us as faculty. As we look through our applicants our goal is to find fellows who are as motivated and passionate as we are about the field and the rest will fall into place.
Sincerely,
Steven D. Smith, MD
Director, Nephrology Fellowship Program