Session 16

This week's guest is Dr. Joel Topf, a private practice and academic Nephrologist who loves teaching and the small details. Back in Episode 06 of the Specialty Stories Podcast, we first covered Nephrology where I talked with Dr. Jean Robey, a private-practice Nephrologist.

As you get to listen to both episodes, you will hear some differences in both of those settings. My goal for this podcast is to not just give you insights into what a certain specialty does, but also, for you to see the differences between an academic specialty and a community specialty, or a private-practice physician and be able to compare those different settings.

As you go through your medical training, most of the exposure you get is the academic side of medicine and that is not the majority of medicine practiced. Hence, I wanted to give you insights into all of the different aspects of it and be able to compare a private-practice Nephrologist (back in Episode 06) and this episode which is more of an academic Nephrologist.

[03:00] Choosing Nephrology

Having finished his fellowship in 2003, Dr. Topf is in a hybrid setting where he works for private practice but hired by the hospital to run their fellowship program. He teaches medical students (second to fourth years and the residency program), although it's not a pure academic role since he doesn't do a lot of research.

Coming out of medical school, Dr. Topf wanted to do a specialty that allowed him to subspecialize so he chose Med-Peds. It was on the third year of his four-year residency that he decided to do a fellowship and specialize in Nephrology. What led him to this decision is finding how interesting medicine gets and as you study it more, it gets even more interesting. Then before you know it, you can't escape. Dr. Topf was so delighted with Nephrology. However, he was also working on another project, writing a textbook on fluids and electrolytes. So while he was learning a lot of Nephrology, he was also learning a lot of Renal Physiology and fell in love with it.

By the time he was choosing his specialty, he felt like Nephrology had picked him more than he picked the specialty and there was nothing else he would ever consider doing. Had he had a more open mind, Critical Care would have been something he considered but he's happy with Nephrology since a lot of the very interesting cases that he likes in Nephrology are shared with Critical Care.

[05:35] Traits of a Good Nephrologist

Dr. Topf says that the most important trait that leads to being a good nephrologist is being detail-oriented and fastidious since it involves a lot of numbers and balls to keep in the air when you take care of these patients who have a number of problems especially when it comes to dialysis or transplant cases.

Most other primary care doctors and specialists want to take their hands off and leave it all up to the Nephrologist to take care of that so you end up being a generalist for a wide span of patients. So even though much time is spent focused on Nephrology, at least in training, Dr. Topf emphasized that you still need to keep your Internal Medicine skills sharp (reason that he re-certified in Internal Medicine).

[06:40] A Typical Day Being a Nephrologist

Dr. Topf would usually start his day at an outpatient dialysis clinic or two. They see all of their hemodialysis patients once a week and they have around 50 hemodialysis patients. So he goes to a couple of dialysis units in the morning and see a few of his first shift dialysis patients. Next stop is the hospital to see patients through the rest of the morning then have clinic patients in the afternoon. Sometimes in the middle of the day, he would also