Kidney Diseases Handbook

The 2 A.M. Consult, Solved Before You Reach the Chart Built for the resident paged about a rising creatinine, the fellow reading an unexplained potassium of 6.8, or the hospitalist facing acid-base numbers that don’t add up, this handbook connects nephron physiology to the decision at the bedside. It moves from filtration, tubular transport, and autoregulation through fluid, electrolyte, and acid-base disorders, acute kidney injury, chronic kidney disease staging and progression-slowing therapy, glomerular and tubulointerstitial disease, hypertension, dialysis, transplantation, and kidney disease across pregnancy, diabetes, and the lifespan - the full clinical arc, built on one coherent physiology rather than twenty-four disconnected topics. Every chapter embeds the Nephron Signal Recognition System, a recurring five-part callout - Signal, Signal Read, Decision, Trap Logic, Signal Anchor - that turns a lab value or urine finding into an immediate clinical action, consolidated at the back into a fully cross-referenced Master Index for bedside lookup. From Nephron Physiology to the Consult Note, You Will Read a rising creatinine correctly - the thirty percent threshold that separates an expected drug effect from true injury, applied consistently from ACE inhibitors to SGLT2 inhibitors. Disentangle any acid-base picture - a six-step systematic approach that catches mixed disorders a single blood gas would hide. Run a hyperkalemia code without hesitation - stabilize, shift, remove, in the right order, every time. Localize acute kidney injury fast - prerenal, intrinsic, or postrenal, confirmed by trajectory, not guesswork. Stage and slow CKD - the combined GFR-albuminuria risk map and the four-pillar pharmacologic regimen now defining modern care. Separate nephrotic from nephritic disease - and recognize the crescentic glomerulonephritis that cannot wait for a full workup. Manage the dialysis and transplant patient - access, adequacy, and the trough-level-first approach to unexplained graft dysfunction. Handle kidney disease in pregnancy, diabetes, and across the lifespan - with dosing and risk reasoning built for the patient in front of you, not a textbook average. Put the reasoning behind every kidney consult you’ll ever take in one reference - open it before the next page comes in.