Buffalo VA Medical Center

This 199-bed, 1.4 million-square-foot facility provides medical, surgical, mental health, long-term and outpatient care.

V A exterior.

The VA Western New York Healthcare System provides care to more than 44,000 veterans annually. Although patients hail primarily from the westernmost eight counties of Upstate New York, the hospital serves as the inpatient specialty care referral site for all veterans west of Syracuse.

Patients present with a wide range of disease states, encompassing one of the highest case severity indexes within the Veterans Health Affairs system.

The Buffalo VA Medical Center is the main referral center for area veterans seeking cardiac surgery, cardiology care and comprehensive cancer care.

It is one of only 12 VA medical centers nationwide conducting a trial of real-time, Internet-based electronic medical records exchanges with private sector hospitals, including all UB medical school rotation sites.

Training

Our Buffalo VA Medical Center site will play a major role in helping you master the fundamentals of consultative care and nephrology in an intensive care unit setting.

Here, we’ll train you to obtain a clinical history, perform a relevant review of systems and assess the functional status of patients with symptoms of renal conditions.

This site will give you significant experience with diabetic and hypertensive patients with chronic kidney disease.

Additionally, the outpatient dialysis facility at this site will strengthen your knowledge about caring for patients with end-stage renal disease.

Research

This center is a major research site for our division. You’ll have opportunities to conduct research in areas including:

  • epidemiology of chronic kidney disease and acute kidney injury
  • treatment of diabetic kidney disease
  • efficacy of various drugs in kidney diseases
  • treatment of anemia in chronic kidney disease and hypertension
  • clinical informatics

Continuity Clinic

You can expect to spend a half day in our continuity clinic at the Buffalo VA Medical Center every other week.

In our continuity clinics, you’ll develop skills in providing longitudinal care and create rewarding relationships with the faculty who train you and with the patients you see.

Rotations

Electives

Faculty and Staff

  • nephrology fellowship program director
  • renal clinic director
  • dialysis unit director
  • nurses

Faculty have special interests in:

  • resistant hypertension
  • renal pharmacology 
  • pre-transplant testing, screening, consultation
  • epidemiology of chronic kidney disease

Patient Population

  • veterans of both genders
  • wide range in ages
  • drawn from Upstate New York