Althea Mahon has been looking through the latest edition of ANNA and recommends several articles and abstracts, especially an up-dated account of a dialysis-dependent's cycling marathon, across the USA.

This is a special edition containing the abstracts submitted for ANNA's 32nd Annual National Symposium, held in Las Vegas this year. In total there are 60 abstracts, covering all areas of nephrology nursing. Among them are 3 abstracts from the UK as listed below:

Choosing not to dialyse is by Maria Da Silva-Gane, Carolyn Smith, Shahid Chandna, Paul Warwicker, Roger Greenwood, Ken Farrington, Renal Unit, Lister Hospital, Stevenage, Herts.

Evaluation of a memorial service on bereaved relatives and carers is by Sheila Hallett, Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, Cornwall and Zena Lethbridge, University of Plymouth.

Lethbridge and Hallett also contributed: Developing a learning package for renal nurses, about visual impairment

There is a good review of the pathophysiology, clinical findings, diagnosis and treatments of IgA Nephropathy, which is well written and easy to follow, also with the aid of well presented diagrams.

Other continuing education articles, such as acute renal failure related to rhabdomyolysis are available on-line by going to www.annanurse.org, which can also be downloaded. This site is well worth a visit.

This year ANNA has printed the Clinical Performance Measures (CPMs) Project. This project was developed by the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) to measure the quality of renal services provided under the Medicare programme. The HCFA funded the development of CPMs which are based on the National Kidney Foundation's, Dialysis Outcome Quality Initiative (DOQI) Clinical Practice Guidelines.

The 2000 ESRD CPM annual report is also available on-line by going to www.hcfa.gov/quality/3m.htm, and information is available on the project method, samples, data collection process, clinical performance measures, data analysis and report format. There are also links from this site to the DOQI Guidelines update for 2000, also available on-line at www.kidney.org/professionals/doqi/.

Finally, I'd like to recommend a follow-up interview with Bryon Vouga, who cycled across America in June 1999. The first article was published in February 2000, which was a nursing account and now Bryon talks about his experience. He writes about the 5 E's of rehab:

		exercise,
		employment,
		education,
		evaluation and
		encouragement.

When Bryon made this epic journey he was dialysis dependent, but has since received a transplant, has got married and his wife is expecting their first child. He is a great inspiration to other dialysis dependent patients in showing what can be achieved, even with a chronic illness.

ANNA Volume 28, No 2, April 2001