| April 29th 2005 | Dr Robin Winney retires at the beginning of May. On April 29th there will be an afternoon of presentations about nephrology and transplantation since the 1960s, when he qualified in medicine, and about his career in Edinburgh nephrology since the 1970s. Download programme (pdf file). Further info from renal@ed.ac.uk | |
| March 2005 | St John's satellite unit opened. Its first patients were from the Western General Hospital satellite unit, which was temporarily closed while repairs were undertaken. New patients for the satellite unit followed. | |
| February 2005 | Dr John Neary has been appointed as a consultant from May 2005 to succeed Dr Winney (see above, April 29th). He will take over some responsibility for the PD programme among other special responsibilities. | |
| January 2005 | 1 million hits EdREN has received over 1 million page views since August 2002 when the current counting system was inaugurated. Daily page views are now around 2000. Not all pages are counted. Diet pages remain the clear leader, followed by proteinuria and nephrotic syndrome, chronic renal failure, and high blood pressure. Vasculitis, Goodpasture disease remain popular. PKD and diabetic nephropathy have increased hits, but 'no dialysis', one of the newer pages, has shown the most rapid increase. How to estimate GFR remains the most viewed medically-targeted page, followed by Transplant immunosuppression, and How to start an ACE inhibitor. | |
| Dec 2004 | Dr Wendy Metcalfe appointed to a new consultant post, commencing April 2005. As well as working at the RIE she will have particular responsibility for the Borders region. She will undertake a weekly nephrology clinic at Borders General Hospital and have responsibility for the satellite unit there. A good career for women? In South East Scotland, 5 out of 8 full-time consultants are now women. The academic team fares much less well unfortunately. |
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| May 2004 | 600,000 hits EdREN has received 600,000 page views since August 2002 when the current counting system was inaugurated. Daily page views are now around 1,400, doubled in 20 months. Not all pages are counted however. The pattern of viewing seems to remain similar to that 20 months ago. | |
| April 2003 | Move to the New Royal Infirmary Over Easter weekend and the following two days, all renal and transplant inpatients moved to the New Royal Infirmary at Little France. Outpatient dialysis was first undertaken there on Easter Sunday, 20th April. | |
| April 2003 | Dr Jane Goddard has been appointed as a new consultant nephrologist in Edinburgh. The new post has been funded to support the increasing number of patients receiving dialysis and transplants in Edinburgh. | |
| March 2003 | EdREN receives 1000 page views on weekdays The running average is something over 800 pages viewed per day, but most week days page views top 1000, with about half that number at weekends. | |
| Sep 2002 | Over 700 pages of this site are looked at every day The invisible but free 'hit-counter' on the Home page was withdrawn by Netscape, so counters are being placed on individual pages as they are revised. In the last week of August the tagged pages (some remain untagged) received an average of over 500 'page impressions' each day (that's equivalent to 180,000 per annum). This is not the number of individual users, who may look at one, several or many pages - and they may read them closely, or not at all. Today, the Diet pages received the most hits. Proteinuria, Nephrotic Syndrome, UTI, Haematuria, Normal kidneys, and Goodpasture's are among the most popular single subject pages, but longer trends will be more accurate. We think that very approximately half of our readers are from Britain (including local patients and staff), but the rest are from all over the world. | |
| July 2002 | Extra support for transplant donation UK Transplant have supported two new posts, one to support a full-time live donor coordinator, the other based on the intensive care unit at the Western Gerneal Hospital to promote and educate on organ donation. More about Transplant Coordinators. | |
| July 2002 | New edition of the Unit Handbook Updated in July and from early August available both in print and on-line on this website. Transplant protocols have also been reviewed and will follow shortly. | |
| June 2002 | Transplant Unit annual reports online Annual reports on activity and outcomes have been published internally for a number of years. From this year we are making reports available online. These are mostly statistical data but include brief overviews and at least one topical item. This year Jen Lumsdaine describes the filming of a live related transplant for the Kirsty Wark's TV series 'Lives Less Ordinary'. Download the 2002 report as a pdf file from the Transplant Unit page. | |
| April 2002 | Training more nephrologists We are training 5 future nephrologists at any one time. At least another 5 are currently in research or other posts in Edinburgh. Two training posts are being advertised now (click 'more posts' to find) by SCPMDE. Edinburgh's nephrology training scheme was highly rated when externally reviewed in 2001. The minor points raised relating to training in renal biopsies and formal training reviews are being addressed. | |
| March 2002 | Peer review report The Edinburgh Renal and Transplant Units were officially reviewed by a group of doctors, nurses and patients appointed by the Scottish Renal Registry in association with CRAG in November 2001. Their report was generally very favourable. The points highlighted for development were mostly well recognised: the need for a further consultant nephrologist was a major one. Read a summary | |
| February 2002 | Haemodialysis expansion approved Lothian Health Board has approved plans to expand haemodialysis provision in the region by 36 places in Edinburgh by 2003-4, and 24 places in a new unit at St John's Hospital in West Lothian by 2004-5. The location of the extra facilities in Edinburgh is still under discussion, but the New Royal Infirmary is first choice. In addition there is a need to find adequate medium-term accommodation for the existing 9 stations at the Western General Hospital. | |
| Feb 2002 | Website hits top 1000 per month EdREN, this website, received more than 1000 'hits' during January. These come from all over the world. This is likely to be an underestimate, possibly a major underestimate, as only newcomers to the home page are counted. | |
| Jan 2002 | Intranet availability of EdREN This website is now available over the Intranet, within Lothian Hospitals Trust hospitals, as well as the Internet. This is because of the slow roll-out of Internet access to machines within clinical areas. Although the external links will not function on machines linked only to the Intranet, the electronic availability of protocols and patient information should be a substantial benefit. It is intended to update the LUHT Intranet version of the website 'regularly', but it will never be as up to date as the Internet version, and you should use the Internet version if you have a choice. | |
| Dec 2001 | History The history of the Unit has now been immortalised in this website in an excellent Year 4 medical student project undertaken by Dichelle Wong. The primary aim was to produce a written document, but it seemed a shame not to make the information uncovered more widely available. Read the History of Dialysis and Transplantation in Edinburgh. Information on renal replacement therapy worldwide has also been improved. Read more. | |
| Nov 2001 | Outcomes review Members of the Unit put in a large effort to study the fate of a large group of patients commencing dialysis between 1998-2000. This was to assist with understanding where we could do better, and to ensure that access to dialysis and transplantation was being provided as fairly as possible. Read more. | |
| Sept 2001 | The Patients Association, the SESKPA has offered to support the expansion of and publicity for EdREN (this website), including the addition of information about the SESKPA itself. Support will include measures to extend the availability of access to the site in hospitals and dialysis units within Lothian, and awareness of the site at all levels, especially to GPs. The site will remain free of commercial sponsorship and entirely the product of staff (and in the future patients) from within the Unit. A first step was the purchase of a more easy-to-remember address, www.edren.org | |
| Sept 2001 | Renal Unit Handbook, a book of medical protocols for immediate management of many renal problems, is now reproduced electronically on EdREN (this website). Protocols that are strictly local have been indicated, but most will be generally applicable. Providing them electronically should mean that referring hospitals and physicians can have ready access - and that it will be easy to keep these up to date. EdRenINFO, the section of the website directed particularly towards patients and non-nephrology medical staff, is also almost at its full size, but is being continually reviewed and modified. | |
| August 2001 | Dr Paddy Gibson has been appointed as consultant nephrologist to replace Dr William Plant, to great local celebration. He will be particularly responsible for providing nephrological support to West Lothian, including the weekly renal clinic at St. John's hospital. | |
| July 2001 | Undergraduate teaching Year 4 medical undergraduates joined the Unit for the first rotations in the new curriculum. They will have two-week attachments to the Unit in groups of up to 12, and will have a number of timetabled tutorials with staff of all types. See our Education section for more information. | |
| June 2001 | Consultant staff changes Dr William Plant, a consultant nephrologist in Edinburgh since 1996, leaves to take up a post in Cork this month. The post will be advertised shortly - broadly to fulfill the same role, but the precise remit will be influenced by the outcome of the options appraisal currently under way for the expansion of haemodialysis facilities in Lothian (see below). | |
| May 2001 |
Website hits top 100 per week EdREN, this website, now receives more than 100 'hits' per week. Many are from local machines but an increasing proportion come from all over the world, as our pages are coming up in searches using the major search engines. Try searching on EdREN itself, or on individual topics such as 'nephrotic syndrome'. (The hit counter was activated at the beginning of March 2001). This count is an underestimate. Read more. 
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| April 2001 | Lothian Health Board to fund 80 more haemodialysis places Lothian Health has agreed to fund the expansion of haemodialysis provision in the region over the next 5 years. Evidence presented in last year's Renal Review suggested that approximately 20 more haemodialysis places would be required each year. Recent analysis of take-on rates and outcomes helped to persuade the Board that this analysis was reasonable and justified. An option appraisal is to be undertaken to review the possible locations of developments in the next few years. A satellite unit at St John's hospital is believed to be a strong candidate but the opportunity is being taken to consider all options. As the Unit is currently operating at full capacity, initial expansion will come from opening up a third shift each day on Ward 21A, one of the outpatient dialysis areas at the Royal Infirmary. | |
| April 2001 | Information technology review McKesson HBOC, the suppliers for the Trust's ambitious Hospital Information System (HIS) project, have conceded that they will not be able to deliver the project on time as originally conceived. This has important implications for the Renal service. At present we are using a slightly dated but capable system 'Proton' for handling demographic data, dialysis infomation, and the results of tests. It is now necessary to review how these capabilities can be transferred to the new Royal Infirmary when the Unit moves in 2003. | |
| April 2001 | Renal Unit Handbook now available in paper form. Also available as a pdf file for local people. A less locally-directed electronic version of the protocols is being progressively made available via EdREN (go to EdRenHANDBOOK). |