Maura Watson

• United States Army

Purpose To evaluate the impact of surgical intervention on long-term renal outcomes for adult patients with congenital ureteropelvic junction obstruction (UPJO). Methods We queried service members diagnosed with UPJO from the United States Military Health System electronic health records from 2005 to 2020. We assessed demographic, laboratory, radi...

Purpose To evaluate the impact of surgical intervention on long-term renal outcomes for adult patients with congenital ureteropelvic junction obstruction (UPJO). Methods We queried service members diagnosed with UPJO from the United States Military Health System electronic health records from 2005 to 2020. We assessed demographic, laboratory, radio...

Background In 2022, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) reduced minimum program director protected time for program administration from 10 to 8 hours/week, with no core faculty requirement. We surveyed program leaders regarding the impact of these changes. Methods Anonymous, on-line survey of all US adult nephrology pr...

Rationale and Objectives Interpersonal communication skills and professionalism competencies are difficult to assess among nephrology trainees. We developed a formative “Breaking Bad News” simulation and implemented a study in which nephrology fellows were assessed with regard to their skills in providing counseling to simulated patients confrontin...

Background and objectives: An unintended consequence of electronic medical record use in the United States is the potential effect on graduate physician training. We assessed educational burdens and benefits of electronic medical record use on United States nephrology fellows by means of a survey. Design, setting, participants, & measurements: W...

Introduction: Biopsy of the allograft is the gold standard for assessing kidney allograft dysfunction. The aim of our pilot study was to identify serum biomarkers that could obviate the need for biopsy. Materials and Methods: We conducted a study to identify the biomarkers in the serum from different groups of chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients...

Objectives: The association of race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic factors with survival rates of nursing home (NH) residents with treated end-stage renal disease (ESRD) is unclear. We examined whether race/ethnicity, ZIP code-level, and individual-level indicators of poverty relate to mortality of NH residents on dialysis. Design: Retrospective...

Background Few quantitative nephrology-specific simulations assess fellow competency. We describe the development and initial validation of a formative objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) assessing fellow competence in ordering acute dialysis. Methods The three test scenarios were acute continuous renal replacement therapy, chronic di...

A recent study showed an increased risk of death in African Americans compared with whites with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) due to lupus nephritis (LN). We assessed the impact of age stratification, socioeconomic factors, and kidney transplantation on the disparity in patient survival among African American versus non-African American patients w...

Purpose: Hyperkalemia during renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system inhibition (RAAS-I) may prevent optimum dosing. Treatment options include sodium polystyrene sulfonate potassium binding resins, but safety and efficacy concerns exist, including associated colonic necrosis (CN). Alternative agents have been studied, but cost-utility has not been es...

Colonic necrosis has been reported after sodium polystyrene sulfonate (SPS)/sorbitol use, but the incidence and relative risk (RR) are not established. Retrospective cohort study. 123,391 adult inpatients at a tertiary medical center. Receipt of SPS prescriptions (exposed) or a prescription other than SPS (unexposed internal comparison group) betwe...

Sodium polystyrene sulfonate (SPS) potassium binding resins increase colonic potassium excretion and are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of hyperkalemia. In 2009, the FDA recommended that sorbitol, a cathartic often given with SPS to prevent obstipation, not be added to SPS powder because of associated colo...

Vocal cord dysfunction (VCD) is difficult to diagnose. Laryngoscopy while the patient is symptomatic is the accepted standard method to establish a diagnosis of VCD, but patient characteristics and spirometry values are thought to be useful for predicting VCD. We sought to identify clinical and spirometric variables that suggest VCD. We performed 2...

PURPOSE: Vocal cord dysfunction (VCD) is a difficult diagnosis to make clinically. While results of laryngoscopy are considered the gold standard, patient characteristics and spirometric testing are thought to be predictive of the disease. Our objective was to review the records of all patients who had laryngoscopy performed as part of their evalua...