Dr. Amy Waterman named the 2019 AST Clinician of Distinction

Former StaffDonation Stories

Dr. Waterman is presented with the AST Clinician of Distinction Award

We are excited to announce that Dr. Amy Waterman has been named the recipient of the 2019 Clinician of Distinction Award by the American Society of Transplantation (AST)!

Each year the award is presented to a non-physician clinician who is an expert in their field and who is making outstanding contributions to clinical transplant. This year Dr. Waterman was nominated by Dr. Matthew Cooper, a longtime friend and colleague, and a professor of surgery and the director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation at the Medstar Georgetown Transplant Institute.

“I’m incredibly honored and thankful to be recognized by AST with this award. At the beginning of my career, I was named one of AST’s Young Investigators, and I hope that through my service and dedication to the field that I have fulfilled their expectations for me,” Dr. Waterman commented.

Receiving the AST Clinician of Distinction award is a huge honor for Dr. Waterman and the entire Transplant Research & Education Center team. The award is particularly meaningful to Dr. Waterman who has dedicated her career to serving those in the kidney transplant and living donation community and to seeking innovative ways to reduce the organ donor shortage and disparities in access to transplant. She has worked directly with patients, donors, and providers for more than two decades to produce resources that are easy to understand and comprehensive.

Among these resources are the award-winning family of kidney transplant and living donation educational programs that she has created, tested, and made available through the nonprofit organization, Explore Transplant. With the help of our organizational partner, Health Literacy Media, Explore Transplant trainings have been made available to transplant centers, organ procurement organizations, and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) organizations in the United States and Canada, effectively improving transplant outreach and increasing referrals.

These educational resources were among the first in the field to apply readiness theories (Stages of Change / Transtheoretical Model) to the education that patients and donors receive, effectively tailoring material to each individual. Resources include tailored print and video materials, a decision aid app titled My Transplant Coach, and an online library of stories about living donation kidney transplant recorded by real patients, donors, and their friends and family.

Today Dr. Waterman and all of us here at TREC continue working to boost living donor rates and access to transplant for all patients. Dr. Waterman and the team at TREC would like to thank Dr. Cooper for his nomination and the AST awards committee for their recognition.

Watch the awards presentation below.