Dr. Fadem is a practicing Houston nephrologist. He began practice in 1978 after completing a renal fellowship at The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. He is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine and did his internal medicine residency at The University of Texas and MD Anderson Hospital in Houston. He is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Formerly from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Dr. Fadem is married and has three children.

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He is also a diplomate of the American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Physicians, and a member of the American Society of Nephrology, International Society of Nephrology, Renal Physicians Association, the American Association of Kidney Patients, and the National Kidney Foundation.

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He is active in quality management, credentialing, and peer review for his dialysis centers. He was a founding member and first president of the Gulf Coast Kidney Society. He is currently the Medical Advisory Board Chairman of the National Kidney Foundation Serving Texas.

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On a national level, he is a former Vice-President of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Medical Advisory Board of the American Association of Kidney Patients. He is on three national RPA committees: the Government Affairs Committee, the Clinical Practice Committee, and the Health Finance Committee. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Renal Physicians Association, participated in the Forum of ESRD Networks, and was a member of the CMS Clinical Performance Measures Committee. He has served on the Technical Expert Panel for Dialysis Facility Compare and chaired a subcommittee on the Fistula First Initiative Task Force. He serves on Technical Expert Panels for the National Quality Forum and the National Committee on Quality Assurance and was on the Technical Expert Panel for the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Association. He has been a consultant to the computer industry in the development of CKD management software and in 1996 developed the Nephron Information Center, including a constellation of websites, including nephron.com, renalworld, touchcalc, mdrd.com, ckd-epi.com. He has since developed the Touchcalc® line of medical calculators and apps. 

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He lectures frequently on dialysis management, preventive nephrology, vascular calcification, anemia, patient education, CKD education, information systems, computer technology, and computer security. Dr. Fadem has been nationally recognized by receiving the American Association of Kidney Patients Nova Award and the National Kidney Foundation's Distinguished Service Award. He has also received the National Kidney Foundations President's Award and the Myron L. Jenkins Award. He has been awarded the Peter Lundin Award for his contributions to patient education. Dr. Fadem is also a recipient of the Samuel Orenstein Award and the AAKP Visionary Award. In 2018, AAKP awarded him the Lifetime Academic and Professional Achievement Awards. In 1919, he received AAKP’s highest honor, The Medal of Excellence. He has been ranked among the Top Doctors in the USA by U.S. News and World Report and is a Texas Super Doctor. He was ranked among the top nephrologists in Houston by the Houston Chronicle. He is listed as a Top Doctor by H Texas Magazine. He is the recipient of the 2013 Core Value Award for Continuous Quality Improvement. This award is given yearly to the DaVita Medical Director who best exemplifies the core value of CQI through outcomes-based leadership. He is a 2014 recipient of the NKF Crystal Slipper Award.

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Dr. Fadem has special interests in slowing the progression of kidney disease, slowing aging, and preventing falls. He is working on clinical research projects on treating chronic kidney disease and was a principal investigator for the Tolvaptan polycystic kidney disease clinical trial. He is a member of the Collaborative Study Group, where he participated in clinical research trials for the phosphate binder ferric citrate. He has edited seven textbooks on kidney disease, Issues in Dialysis (Nova Science, Hauppauge, NY, March 2012), and Essentials of Chronic Kidisease, Editions 1 and 2 (Nova Science, Hauppauge, NY, June 2015). He was Senior Editor of the four volume series, Issues in Kidney Disease, also published by Nova Science (Hauppauge, NY, 2022). He is the author of Staying Healthy with Kidney Disease and Understanding and Preventing Falls published by Springer-Nature (New York, NY) 2023. Along with Tom Golper, and Jose A Moura-Neto, he edited Complications in Dialysis, also published by Springer-Nature (New York, NY) 2023.

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He is currently working with Ahmed Awan and Emaad Andul Rahman on the book Aging in the Kidney, to be published by Elsevier in 2027. 

 

Dr. Fadem’s hobbies include travel, reading, and photography. A sampling of his photos can be seen on Flickr, and even purchased at Stephen Z Fadem Photography.