I am a pediatrician. I created KidneyWeb as a portal for written and electronic resources to help other medical professionals, especially those caring for children with kidney disease (see site history below).  My primary professional objectives are patient care and teaching.  I have interests in patient advocacy, iron and anemia management, history of medicine and use of computers in medicine.  I practice in Fort Worth, Texas and surrounding areas.

I have published many articles in scientific and popular publications (see list of publications and speaking engagements).  I frequently give presentations to medical groups, and have held a faculty appointment at Texas A&M University College of Medicine.  I have been interviewed by KIII-TV (ABC), KZTV (CBS) and KORO (Univision) in south Texas.  I also have served as a consultant to the Food and Drug Administration, and as a reviewer for scientific journals, including Pediatric Nephrology and Nature Clinical Practice: Nephrology.

I established another website, RailwaySurgery.org, dedicated to the history of the unusual medical specialty of railway surgery.

My educational background is as follows:

• Bachelor of Science, University of St. Thomas, Houston
• Master of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle
• Doctor of Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
• Residency in Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Austin
• Fellowship in nephrology, Children’s Hospital & Regional Medical Center, Seattle

I am available for lectures, presentations and other speaking engagements.  I can speak to any type of audience, including medical (specialty or primary care), non-medical and the general public. The lecture will be tailored to meet the needs of your group, but some suggested topics are listed below.  Please feel free to contact me to discuss your needs and any ideas you may have.

For medical audiences (physicians, nurses, dieticians, social workers):

• Hypertension in children
  
• Iron and anemia management in kidney disease
• Dialysis and CRRT in children
• Review and update of common kidney diseases in children
• Unique aspects of dialysis and transplantation in children
• History of medicine (railway surgery)

For non-medical audiences:

• Medical history (railway surgery)

Robert S. Gillespie, MD, MPH

Email:  robert @ kidneyweb.net

Phone:  (682) 885-4260

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When I began my clinical practice I started collecting printed information on various topics to give to my patients.  In fact, patient families often asked me specifically for written materials.  I discovered that very few available handouts addressed the highly specific topics seen in pediatrics, especially in specialized areas such as nephrology.  Those I found were usually written with adults in mind; many used large words and language that would challenge people with limited education and/or medical knowledge.  Some materials from commercial sources showed an obvious bias toward their products, and rarely could I find anything at all in Spanish.  So I began writing my own handouts, for my own use, with the goals of keeping them brief, simple, concise and easy to read.  I translated all of them into Spanish to meet the needs of the large Spanish-speaking population I served. Over time I continued to expand and refine this library with features such as formal readability analyses and interactive elements.

I also found I could save time in my practice by creating electronic tools such as advanced spreadsheets and document templates.  These helped automate tedious manual tasks, such as calculating 24-hour urinary stone profile results or dialysis adequacy.

I wondered if other people in practice might also find these materials helpful.  As an experiment, I posted some on a simple web page called “Rob’s Pediatric Resource Center” in mid-2004.  The response went far beyond all my expectations!  Countless doctors and other professionals from around the world wrote to tell me how much they appreciated these materials.  The site quickly grew as I continued to add new handouts and links to various other web pages of use to our community. 

The original site used a shared web hosting service with limited bandwidth, supported by advertising over which I had no control.  The enthusiastic response to the site justified more bandwidth and its own, easy-to-remember domain name.  In July 2006 I renamed the site KidneyWeb and completely redesigned it for a cleaner look and easier navigation.  I also added a trial section for patients and lay persons.  The upgraded site moved to its own ad-free home at KidneyWeb.net.

I continue to maintain and support KidneyWeb, with no advertising or commercial sponsorship.  I welcome all comments and suggestions for new materials and links. Thanks for visiting and using KidneyWeb!