WVU School of Medicine, Section of Nephrology
The Crossroads of Modern Medicine & Rural Medicine
In rural America and particularly West Virginia, where kidney disease is highly prevalent and specialty physicians are not, outreach is a key component of medical opportunity for many patients. Optimizing access to care, both a challenge and a priority, has formed the cornerstone of the vision of practicing nephrologists in the Section of Nephrology at the West Virginia University School of Medicine. In nephrologists' quest to meet the needs of the many West Virginians who live distant to medical care, they formed the Rural Nephrology Initiative which began with one on-campus clinic and two outpatient dialysis units. Since 2003, this initiative has grown into more thatn two dozen outreach clinics and dialysis units throughout West Virginia. And now now the care is further expanding. WVU Medicine will soon become a transplant center, to further meet the growing needs of patients throughout the state.