Section of Pediatric Nephrology

On behalf of our entire staff, I would like to welcome you to the Section of Pediatric Nephrology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Arkansas Children’s Hospital. I’m thrilled that you have chosen to visit our website and look forward to connecting with you on a more personal level. If you’re interested in learning more about our team, the “Faculty” tab allows you to view individual faculty members and their unique interests.

The Section of Pediatric Nephrology includes board-certified specialists with academic appointments in the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. The section employs a team approach to provide full service inpatient and outpatient care to children and adolescents with kidney disease and hypertension. The medical professionals work in partnership with local and regional physicians to manage such things as urinary tract infections, hydronephrosis, hematuria, glomerulonephritis, kidney stones, chronic kidney disease, hypertension, kidney failure, dialysis and transplantation.

We provide nephrology services at our main clinic on the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Little Rock campus, as well as regional clinics at the Arkansas Children’s Northwest and ACH Jonesboro Clinic facilities. Arkansas Children’s Hospital, with its 336 patient beds and three intensive care units (pediatric, cardiovascular, and neonatal) is one of the largest free-standing children’s hospitals in the country, giving our faculty virtually unlimited opportunities to improve the lives of children while providing hands-on educational experiences for our residents. We have an active acute kidney injury program that includes the automated screening of electronic health records of hospitalized patients for known nephrotoxic medications thereby allowing physicians and pharmacists an opportunity to reduce nephrotoxic medication acute kidney injury rates. The section provides hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis and continuous renal replacement therapy to even the smallest of children. We also routinely care for 20 or more children with end-stage kidney disease in the states only accredited pediatric dialysis unit offering both chronic peritoneal and hemodialysis. As the states only Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services certified pediatric kidney transplant program, our patients are able to partner with our multidisciplinary care team to achieve excellent outcomes. Since inception of the kidney transplant program in 1987, we have performed more than 240 transplants.

The section has more than 3,600 outpatient clinic visits each year and performs more than 500 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure measurement studies annually. We have daily clinics and can provide appointments usually within a week of referral, as well as same day or next day visits as needed. Our telemedicine program continues to expand, and we also continue to staff onsite regional clinics in Northwest Arkansas and Jonesboro. Our team participates in several multidisciplinary clinics including a clinic for children with complex genitourinary disorders, spina bifida, tuberous sclerosis complex, fetal medicine, vasculitis, and endocrine related hypertension. The Division is actively involved in several national collaborative quality improvement initiatives such as IROC (Improving Renal Outcomes Collaborative), SCOPE (Standardized Care to Improve Outcome in Pediatric ESRD), and NAPRTCs (North American Pediatric Renal Trials and Collaborative Studies).

The management of complex chronic diseases such as chronic kidney disease, dialysis, and kidney transplantation requires extensive support and education for patients and families. We are committed to providing these services for our patients and have an experienced and dedicated staff of specialty nurses, program coordinators, renal dieticians, and pediatric social workers. We also provide educational opportunities for medical students and residents in pediatrics, internal medicine/pediatrics, pharmacy, and nursing.

We sincerely thank you for taking the time to explore the Section of Pediatric Nephrology and hope that you will connect with us in the future.

Warmly,

Richard T. Blaszak, M.D.
Professor of Pediatrics
Section Chief of Pediatric Nephrology