A few years ago, as the editor of Kidney International, I was ap proached by Drs. Cohen, Kassirer, and Harrington who suggested that a new feature should be included in each monthly issue of the journal. They suggested that it should employ a case discussion format such as that used frequently at specialty rounds in teaching hospitals, and that the discussion should place a special emphasis on the relationship between basic science and important problems in clinical nephrology. The summary of an actual patient history would first be presented to exemplify a particular clinical problem, a...