Nephrology Forum

A few years ago, as the editor of Kidney International, I was ap proached by Drs. Cohen, Kassirer, and Harrington who suggested that a new feature should be included in each monthly issue of the journal. They suggested that it should employ a case discussion format such as that used frequently at specialty rounds in teaching hospitals, and that the discussion should place a special emphasis on the relationship between basic science and important problems in clinical nephrology. The summary of an actual patient history would first be presented to exemplify a particular clinical problem, a seasoned person of proven expertise would be invited to deliver a welldocumented analysis of the relevant issues, and perhaps most ambitiously of all, a critical audience would be assembled to challenge the principal discussant in an open ended, questionandanswer period. The entire affair would be recorded at the time of the live conference and transcribed subse quently in preparation for publication as a 'Nephrology Forum. ' I must confess that I was somewhat hesitant at first to endorse their proposal because, at the time, Kidney International had just begun to establish a solid reputation for the publication of high quality, peer reviewed manuscripts dealing with the clinical and laboratory research interests of the international nephrological community.