Congratulations to Assistant Professor of Medicine Timothy Yau and his Washington University in St. Louis Nephrology Web Video Series, which just topped 40,000 views on YouTube.
In December 2015, Dr. Yau launched the video series as a way to teach clinical nephrology to trainees in an entertaining, web-friendly manner. In the first nine months, the YouTube series had 10,000 views. The number of views quadrupled the following year.
The use of multiple formats keeps the series fresh and engaging. The “webisodes” range from the presentation of renal pathology cases to a two-part installment on vascular access in hemodialysis patients (Episodes #17 and #18), to interviews with American Society of Nephrology (ASN) President Dr. Eleanor Lederer and editor-in-chief of American Journal of Kidney Disease (AJKD) Dr. Harold Feldman.
Yau even took the training program on the road to do a guest recording with nephrologists at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, IL (Episode #19)
The web series, awarded the 2016 ASN Innovation in Kidney Education Award, will continue to evolve as Yau incorporates even more people into the videos. Two additional episodes from the trip to Chicago will soon be posted, and he hopes to visit other locations soon. “Vanderbilt is next on my list when I can arrange time,” he says. “I also hope to get a guest recording while at ASN in New Orleans.”
Dr. Yau is quick to direct people to other quality web initiatives. “The WashU webisodes is just a part of a really vibrant nephrology social media community. I’ve gotten to work with and meet some of the folks behind other incredible resources like NephJC, GlomCon, UKidney, and many others.”
Check out the nephrology webisodes for yourself. Where else can you see nephrologist Dr. Seth Goldberg draw a map of the United States by memory, depicting each state, in under one minute before giving a lecture on Understanding Bone Mineral Metabolism in Kidney Disease (Episode #7)? Have you seen the video of Dr. Yau and other WashU nephrology faculty playing Little Nephron Hornpipe? It got 1600 views, which rivals a few of the pathology videos!
Dr. Yau can be found on Twitter @Maximal_Change and on the AJKD blog site where he is the Social Media Editor.