American Society of Nephrology Kidney TREKS Program : Journal of the American Society of Nephrology
ows. The program combines a one-week intensive exposure to kidney physiology with a longitudinal mentorship program at the participants’ home institutions. Ten years in, an analysis was conducted to assess its effectiveness. We surveyed participants to assess their opinions regarding nephrology before and after the course and followed them longitudinally to determine their career choices. TREKS applicants who were not selected to participate were used as a comparison group. 381 people participated in the program and 242 completed the survey. After TREKS, both medical students and graduate students showed increased interest in nephrology, with rank scores of 5.6±0.2 pre- to 7.5±0.1 post-course for medical students (mean ± standard deviation, n=189, p=0.001) and 7.3±0.3 to 8.7±0.3 (n=53, p=0.001) for graduate students. In long term follow-up, TREKS medical students chose a nephrology pipeline residency at a higher rate than medical students overall (57% vs. 31%, p=0.01) and TREKS applica