July 27, 2026

Your kidney never fully recovered from surgery, and the labs won't show it

Your kidney test comes back normal after surgery, so you must have recovered. Except the damage can be hiding in plain sight. John Erbey is an epidemiologist by training and the founder and CEO of Roivios, where he works at the intersection of science and business. This episode is based on his article "When normal creatinine hides post-operative kidney injury," published on KevinMD. He explains why kidney function is dynamic, like the heart, and why the reserve you lose during surgery rarely returns even when creatinine looks fine. You will hear what a JAMA Network Open study found about elevated death and complication risk in the years after a "normal" recovery, why readmissions blamed on heart failure or infection may trace back to the kidney, and why John makes the case for protecting the kidney during the riskiest windows, from cardiac surgery to sepsis, instead of trusting the discharge number. Press play to learn why a normal kidney result can mislead you, and how to protect the kidney before the damage is locked in.

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