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2014 was the inaugural year for the University of Louisville Kidney
Mentoring and Assessment Program (Kidney MAPS). Kidney MAPS
is modeled after a student-run health screening program conducted
at Harvard University under the leadership of nephrologist Li-Li
Hsiao, M.D. Ph.D. (1)
The Louisville program, along with similar programs at Emory
University and Indiana University, was designed by the American
Society of Nephrology (ASN) to promote a dual mission: to encourage medical student exposure to kidney disease care, and to
detect chronic diseases in a community’s medically underserved
individuals. ASN budgeted $30,000 annually for these programs
and in 2014, 60 students from all three chapters screened over 700
participants for hypertension, diabetes, obesity and proteinuria. The
majority of student participants are in their second year of medical
school, transitioning between basic theory and clinical medicine.
There is a growing local need for physicians who address hypertension, diabetes, and kidney disease. The Center for Disease
Control estimates that in Kentucky, about 350,000 adults have
diabetes and 1.3 million adults have hypertension, and 91,000 have
kidney disease, which has been linked to cardiovascular disease, a
shorter life span, and diminished quality of life (2). This growth in
vascular diseases mandates continued career interest in nephrology and in specialties that focus on prevention and recognition of
kidney-damaging diseases.
Over their first year, the student organization conducted health
screening events at the Senior Center at Oak and Acorn, the Americana Health Center, and at Catholic Charities in partnership with the
University of Louisville Infectious Disease Refugee Health Program.
Medical students run the Louisville Kidney MAPS program with
leadership from this past year’s student president Amy Clark, with
faculty nephrologists Nina Va