Patients waiting for a kidney transplant at the Mount Sinai Health System have a supportive new program to help them: the Kidney Coach program at the Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute’s (RMTI) Zweig Family Center for Living Donation. The program recruits friends and family members to become coaches who spread the word about their loved one’s dire need for a living donor to improve the chances of finding one.
Living donation has increasingly helped to minimize a national kidney shortage that has created waits of five years or longer for more than 100,000 patients. At Mount Sinai, more than 1,400 patients are on the waiting list. The Kidney Coach program is designed to assist patients in informing friends and family of their need for a live donor transplant.
At Mount Sinai’s Zweig Family Center for Living Donation, the coaches receive training that includes learning how to write letters, host community events, and use social media appropriately.
“We hope the Kidney Coach program stimulates discussion about the advantages of living donor transplants,” says Ron Shapiro, MD, Surgical Director of Kidney/Pancreas Transplantation at RMTI and Professor of Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “A living donor’s kidney lasts twice as long as one from a deceased donor.”
Dianne LaPointe Rudow, DNP, Director of the Zweig Family Center for Living Donation, says, “It is difficult for patients to ask someone to be a donor. But if they don’t ask, others won’t recognize their urgent need. This is an important step in letting them know they have a strong support system to tap into to help find a living donor.”
April is National Donate Life Month. To learn more about organ donation, visit www.mountsinaiRMTI.org.