Dr. Amy Waterman, Director of the Transplant Research and Education Center (TREC) and Deputy Director at Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation, has been giving a series of talks about storytelling as an innovative educational tool for kidney and transplant patients at conferences geared to the medical and research community, as well as to patients and donor advocates. As the year draws to a close, Dr. Waterman will have presented to more than 1,000 providers in the US and Canada at talks hosted by Astellas Pharma Inc., One Lambda Inc., and at the Canadian Society of Transplantation’s 2020 Fall Virtual Forum, and at TIBI.
Recently, Dr. Waterman also participated in a panel discussion with kidney patient advocates and providers at the American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics’ Patient Engagement Forum. The focus of that talk was on bringing awareness to the Living Donation Storytelling Project, a digital, health literate, and easily accessible supplementary educational resource for people to learn about living kidney donation through watching personal transplant journey stories. As an advocate for patient engagement and patient-centered education, Dr. Waterman discussed the importance of developing tailored, personalize learning experiences for all kidney patients to encourage more patients to pursue living donation, decrease the donor shortage in the United States, and reduce the many social, economic, and cultural barriers associated with renal replacement therapy accessibility.