My Journey with and in Kidney Diseases

I ended my medical studies at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon in 1965. By then, I had made up my mind. I wanted to go into internal medicine. I felt that any specialty, other than internal medicine, would make me lose a sizeable chunk of the medical knowledge, I had accumulated throughout my academic years. These same, deeply anchored, convictions made me choose the field of nephrology, three years later. I strongly believed then that to be a good nephrologist one had to be a good internist, and had to keep updating his know­ledge of internal medicine. Of course, renal physiology was important and, thanks to the efforts of the late Dr. Raja Khoury, I had acquired excellent notions in this vital field. My decision to train in clinical nephrology was, however, mainly the result of the admiration I had to my mentor Dr. Edmond Shwayri.