Medicine

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 well-documented 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, question-and-answer 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.