Division Director: Dominic Raj, MD
Fellowship Director: Samir Patel, MD

Patient Care Services

The renal inpatient service provides both primary and consultative services to patients with acute and chronic renal disease, hypertension, fluid and electrolyte disorders, and autoimmune illnesses. The inpatient service shares responsibility with the surgical service for the management of renal transplant patients.

The acute dialysis unit is utilized for hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis and therapeutic plasmapheresis. The renal outpatient service performs acute renal replacement therapies such as continuous arteriovenous hemofiltration (CAVH) and continuous veno-venous hemofiltration (CVVH).

Outpatient care takes place in dialysis facilities all around the national capital area. Outpatient clinics are conducted five mornings a week. The Ambulatory Dialysis Centers treat both hemodialysis patients who are dialyzed at the Centers as well as home care patients receiving continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis. A multidisciplinary team of physicians, nurses, social workers and dieticians works closely to provide and care for this patient population.

Fellowship Training and Research

A two-year fellowship in renal diseases is available for physicians who have completed a residency in internal medicine. The combined GW–Veterans Affairs Hospital program includes broadly based clinical experience in all aspects of nephrology, including management of acute and chronic dialysis and training in specialized procedures such as renal biopsy and acute vascular access placement. A rotation at Children’s National Medical Center provides the fellows with experience in pediatric nephrology. Fellows also participate in a renal pathology rotation during the two-year period.

Teaching rounds are held daily on the dialysis, consultative, primary care and transplantation services. Renal conferences are conducted three times a week and include renal grand rounds, journal club, biopsy conference (focusing on clinical and pathological findings), dialysis conference, renal patho-physiology conference and research conference.

A major emphasis is placed on research activities during the fellowship program. Fellows work closely with an attending physician in ongoing research projects during the program, and four months of the fellowship are dedicated to research. Each member of the faculty conducts research in which internal medicine house staff and students are encouraged to participate.

Current research projects include the following: evaluation of anti-hypertensive agents, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, sleep disorders in hemodialysis patients, psycho–social aspects of end-stage renal disease, correlation between zincmetabolism and thymic dysfunction in uremia, high-flux hemodialysis, response to erythropoietin in dialysis patients, HIV-associated nephropathy, modification of diet in renal disease, animal models of diabetic nephropathy, evaluation of renal function, lipid removal and factors influencing mesangial cell growth in mesangial cell culture.

Faculty at The George Washington University Hospital

Dominic Raj, MD
Professor of Medicine and of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Division Director, Renal Diseases and Hypertension
Fields of Interest: Cardiovascular disease in patients with renal diseases(cardio-renal syndrome), Diabetic renal diseases, Glomerulonephritis, Hemodialysis

Manuel Velasquez, MD
Professor of Medicine 
Fields of Interest: Hypertension, Diabetes, Diabetic Nephropathy, Dietary Factors in Renal Disease

Nicolas Guzman, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine 
Fields of Interest: Diabetes, Diabetic Nephropathy, Hypertension, Early Prevention of Renal Disease

Samir Patel, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine 
Fields of Interest: Hypertension, Medical Education, Renal Stones, Renal Transplantation

Kevin Sterling, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine 
Fields of Interest: Chronic Kidney Disease, Genetic Kidney Disease, Secondary Causes of Hypertension

Affiliated Faculty at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center

Carlos Palant, MD, Director, Renal Section
Sholey Argani, MD, MPH 
Sharon Bennett, MD