Nephrology in Chile

Nephrology in Chile has developed gradually from the 1960s. It was initially established as an intrahospital specialty derived from internal medicine and related to university centers. Currently, the clinical practice is centralized in the most populated cities, covering the needs of the whole population. Throughout the years, we have observed an important development of research and teaching activities led by universities, hospitals, and scientific societies. The Chilean Society of Nephrology has run annual scientific congresses uninterruptedly since 1982, establishing annual hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis registries in 1980 and 2004, respectively. These data have been an important input for increasing the knowledge of chronic renal failure epidemiology in the country. Pediatric nephrology began in 1981 as an arm of the Chilean Pediatric Society. The Chilean Society of Transplant was founded in 1981, carrying out scientific congresses in collaboration with the Chilean Societies of Nephrology and Hypertension, and since 2006 they are running their own congress every 2 years. Today in Chile, there are 17.4 nephrologist per million of population. Unfortunately, nephrology is not on the list of the most popular subspecialties among young physicians.