AAMC Article: "Confronting Race in Diagnosis: Medical Students Call for Reexamining How Kidney Function Is Estimated"

"For 21 years, physicians have corrected for race in a formula that estimates kidney function. Students are increasingly questioning why, especially since kidney failure disproportionately impacts Black patients. 

"Melanie Hoenig, MD, a nephrologist and associate professor at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, remembers the first time she seriously questioned the use of a patient's race in the common clinical algorithm that helps doctors determine kidney function. 

"It was the first week of her renal pathophysiology class in 2015, and she was teaching her first-year medical students about the estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR). She explained it's a common clinical formula that incorporates a patient's sex, age, and race to approximate how well the kidneys function.

"Cameron Nutt, a first-year student at the time, asked why the formula adjusted for race in a way that can make kidney function appear better than it actually is for Black people, who are at greatest risk for kidney disease of any racial group. He and two other students, Danika Barry and Leo Eisenstein, wondered about the use of a formula that made biological assumptions about race, which is widely recognized as a social construct. 

"These questions gave Hoenig pause. Why did they correct for race? What should they do if the patient is multiracial? And why were they using a formula that assumes better kidney function in a population group that disproportionately experiences kidney failure?"

Visit the Association of American Medical Colleges' website to read the full article!