Episode 39: A patient and a nephrologist on how using race in kidney testing puts lives at risk

Ever since medicine adopted a race-based formula to assess kidney health in the mid-2000s, some experts have spoken out against it & the life-threatening impact it has on Black patients.  Patients like Glenda Roberts, who long self-identified as Black, and who has lived with kidney disease for most of her adult life. The "Black correction" in the eGFR made it look like her kidneys were doing better than they actually were, which delayed her being worked up for a kidney transplant. Roberts and kidney specialist Vanessa Grubbs spoke this week about the impact this equation has had on patients' lives and whether the profession has truly reckoned with it.