Renal / Genitourinary

A sudden, often reversible loss of kidney function — the nurse’s job is to find where the problem sits (before, inside, or after the kidney) and catch the potassium before it stops the heart.

Nephrons are lost slowly and silently until one failing organ derails five body systems — and a machine, a fistula, and a diet become the patient’s physiology.

An ascending E. coli infection that climbs a ladder — urethra, bladder, kidney, bloodstream — and the nurse’s job is to catch each rung before the next.

One in eleven people will form one, and half will form another within ten years. The pain is famous — but the patient who is quietly febrile behind an obstruction is the one who dies.

Inflammation of the glomerulus lets blood into the urine and holds salt and water in the body. In children it usually resolves; in adults it often does not; and in its crescentic form it destroys kidneys in days.

The glomerular filter springs a protein leak — and losing albumin, clotting inhibitors, and antibodies into the urine explains every complication that follows.

An aging prostate squeezes the urethra it surrounds — and the bladder compensates until it cannot, which is when the kidneys start paying for it.

Involuntary leakage of urine — common, underreported and not a normal part of aging. The type drives the care: pelvic floor exercises for stress leaks, bladder training and antimuscarinics for urge leaks, emptying the bladder for overflow, and a clear path to the toilet for functional incontinence.

Two urinary-tract cancers where smoking is the leading risk. Bladder cancer (urothelial carcinoma) announces itself with painless hematuria, and about half of cases are found in situ (SEER); many patients receive intravesical BCG, and some lose the bladder to a cystectomy with an ileal conduit. Kidney cancer (renal cell carcinoma) is usually silent and found by chance on imaging; the classic triad is rare, and its hormones can cause hypercalcemia and erythrocytosis.

The most common inherited kidney disorder: fluid-filled cysts enlarge both kidneys over decades. High blood pressure usually comes first, then flank pain, blood in the urine, infections and stones, and more than half of people reach kidney failure by 70. Brain aneurysms make a sudden "worst headache" an emergency. Treatment is blood pressure control, plenty of water, less salt, no long-term NSAIDs and, for fast progressors, tolvaptan with its liver-injury warning.