![]() ![]() ![]() As of June 2020, the University of Washington, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital became the latest institutions to abandon the use of race in kidney function estimations. In fact, a growing movement led by US medical students across the country is working to eliminate the use of race as an adjustment in eGFR. Many other current and former black medical students at her school and others have questioned this practice. Nkinsi is not alone in feeling the use of race, a social construct rather than a biological one, in estimating kidney function is inappropriate. Being black, or race, is used as a proxy for so many other things.” When it comes to race, people throw that out the door. ![]() “I was thinking how is this something we are using to measure someone’s kidney function, something that we are using to determine if they can get medication, if they can get transplant or treatment?” said Nkinsi, who is also working on her masters degree in public health at the school. ![]() The use of race as a proxy for muscle mass hearkened back to racist comments she’d heard suggesting that black people have more muscle or are otherwise biologically different. When a lecturer at the University of Washington School of Medicine described the use of black race as an adjustment in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) calculations, it made medical student Naomi Nkinsi uncomfortable. Kidney News - July 2020 12#7 Medical Students Lead Effort to Remove Race from Kidney Function Estimates ![]()
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