Our adult and pediatric teams work together. We have only one priority, and that's giving the patients and their families back their lives. They provide education, information and emotional support. They are available at any time to referring physicians. They help patients and family members deal with the psychological strain of living with a chronic illness and the more practical challenges, such as finding payment for treatment or arranging for transportation.
Dieticians help patients with nutritional needs and weight issues before and after transplant.
They are trained to develop special diets for diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol. By being less invasive than the traditional donor kidney operation, the donor heals faster, has less postoperative pain and returns to work in two weeks instead of five to eight weeks. In fact, the donor can leave the hospital in two days rather that the typical five. This improvement in convenience to the donor may make more people willing to consider donation. Another benefit of this procedure is the ability to find a match among non-blood relatives.