Nephrology
The Division of Pediatric Nephrology of the Department of Pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine has outstanding capabilities in cutting-edge research, trainee education and all levels of clinical patient care. Links on this page provide additional descriptions of each of these missions. As of August 1, 2019, the division comprises ten faculty members, one fellow, two nurse practitioners and two nurse coordinators.
The division provides comprehensive treatment for children who suffer from kidney or genito-urologic disorders, both acute and chronic. This includes evaluation, specialized testing, education and ongoing care, such as the provision of dialysis and kidney transplantation as treatment for chronic kidney disease. Our program is based at St. Louis Children's Hospital, a consistently ranked hospital in the national US News and World report. Washington University School of Medicine has consistently been ranked a top medical school in the USA. The pediatric nephrology division works closely with outstanding programs in Adult Nephrology, Pediatric Urology, Pediatric Rheumatology, and Transplant Surgery.
From our group, the following doctors have been regularly selected (by confidential peer nomination only) in the list of Best Doctors in America:
- Dr. Keith Hruska - continuously from 2004 to 2019
- Dr. Paul Hmiel - continuously from 2005 to 2019
- Dr. Vikas Dharnidharka - continuously from 2007 to 2019
- Dr. Tara Neumayr – from 2019-2020
- Dr. Carmen Halabi – from 2019-2020
Current faculty members hold leadership positions in national societies or in the local institution.
Several current faculty members have received major national achievement awards:
- In 2019, Vikas Dharnidharka received a 5-year R01 grant from the NIAID branch of NIH on “Metagenomic shotgun microbial sequencing in post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorders (PTLD-MSMS)”
- Carmen Halabi received a K08 award on “Vascular Extracellular matrix in arterial development and disease” from the NHLBI division of NIH in 2017
- Aadil Kakajiwala presented his published paper on “Variability in measures of mineral metabolism in children on hemodialysis” at an invited Urine-the-Know session at the annual American Society of Pediatric Nephrology meeting in May 2018
- Paul Hmiel: 2015 - 2016 Outstanding Subspecialty Teaching Award, Pediatric Residents of St Louis Children’s Hospital
- Vikas Dharnidharka is
- the Chair, Executive Committee of the Section of Nephrology, American Academy of Pediatrics, 2018-2020
- a member of the Nephrology working group for US News & World Report since 2017
- a member of the Board of Directors of the North American Pediatric Renal Trials and Collaborative Studies (NAPRTCS) since 2017
- Keith Hruska was an established investigator of the American Heart Association. He is an elected member of the prestigious American Society of Clinical Investigation since 1981 and the Association of American Physicians since 1990. He was President of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research in 2013. He has been NIH-R01 funded consecutively for the past forty years. He has been editor of AJP-Renal, CTI, and on the editorial boards of the JBC, Kidney International and JASN.