Professor of Pathology
Director NKF cyberNephrology
Director, Experimental Pathology
Kim Solez, MD, is one of the world's foremost renal pathologists and medical Internet leaders. He has been at the University of Alberta since 1987, and is currently a Professor and Director of Experimental Pathology as well as Director of NKF cyberNephrology, a joint venture of the National Kidney Foundation (U.S.) and the University of Alberta.
Dr. Solez is perhaps best known for his outstanding success in helping regions and communities that experience severe earthquakes. For many years Dr. Solez was concerned about the fact that “crush syndrome” usually kills at least 50 per cent of earthquake victims two to three days after they have survived the initial shock. Crush syndrome is a form of acute kidney failure set off when limbs are crushed in crumbling buildings. In other words, communities hit by a quake do not so much need the clothing and supplies we all want to send them—what they most need is to have a kidney expert arrive on the first plane after a disaster and to have access to the equipment these experts require to save lives.
As chair of the ISN Commission on Acute Renal Failure from 1989 to 1997, Dr. Solez started the International Society of Nephrology Disaster Relief Task Force, which works in partnership with Doctors Without Borders. Today, the U.S. Geological Survey, which measures seismic activity around the world, alerts Dr. Solez within moments of a major tremor so he can help set a relief plan in motion. He describes his role as “getting the plan to work, writing about it and getting the larger organizations to accept the plan.”
Another of Dr. Solez’ major achievements is the creation of consensus meetings that establish worldwide standards for interpreting and reporting transplant biopsies from kidney, heart, liver, lung and pancreas. As well, he is a principal investigator on the large, high-profile Genome Alberta transplant transcriptome project.
Dr. Solez is well known as a leader in Internet communications in medicine. Many excellent educational resources are available free online through Dr. Solez’ efforts, for example, the Schrier Atlas of Diseases of the Kidney. Dr. Solez says,“Computers are your friends. Seriously.” He believes that technology does not take away from human interaction but rather increases and enhances our connectedness.
Born and raised in upstate New York, with an MD from the University of Rochester, NY, and postgraduate training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland, Dr. Solez is a member of several professional associations, including the World Association of Emergency and Disaster Medicine and the International Society of Nephrology.
The Banff 97 Working Classification of Renal Allograft Pathology. (Kidney International, 1999)
Hooking-Up, Physical Forces, Optimism and Dark Energy: Imagery, Hope, and Health.