Losing a kidney transplant can feel very overwhelming. Today we're here with Anthony Tuggle, a former NKF board member, to hear how he's coping with losing a transplant and learn what's next for him.

Anthony Tuggle is the Afiniti President of Customer Operations, and a former Board Member of the National Kidney Foundation and of NKF Serving Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. Tuggle is responsible for expanding global contact center operations, accelerating business development, overseeing product deployment and engaging clients to generate value for enterprises, customers and employees. Prior to joining Afiniti, Tuggle served as Vice President – Customer Care, Sales and Service Centers at AT&T where he led more than 30,000 sales leaders and has built a culture that fosters a passion for winning. He models a "find-a-way" mindset in his approach to leadership and inspires his team to embrace the importance of agility. Tuggle is the acclaimed author of I'm Better Not Bitter: My Personal Journey - Kidney Transplant Recipient's Story of Winning in Business & Life and Moving Forward, which shares how he has overcome obstacles, is self-motivated, and creates a work culture of success. Notably, Tuggle led efforts in his local community as the 2018-2020 Chairman of the Atlanta Kidney Walk, which raised more than $500,000 for NKF. He also has partnered with AT&T to raise more than $200,000 to date.

Additional resources:

NKF Peers

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Everyone loves to talk about kidney transplant success stories but rarely do we talk about what happens if a transplant fails. On today's episode Dori Muench, a post transplant social worker, and Sue George, a kidney warrior with experience losing a transplant, are here to discuss the impact of losing a kidney and how to cope.

Dorothy Muench, LCSW is a post-transplant social worker with the Abdominal Organ transplant department with Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center for the past 7 years. In this capacity, she works with numerous individuals who have received a kidney or pancreas transplant and works to provide concrete and emotional support. Before this, Dori worked in dialysis for close to 10 years and has seen and heard the effects people have while on dialysis. She works hard to advocate for people to be transplant and find living donors so they can decrease as much time on dialysis as possible. Dori lives in North Carolina with her husband, 2 daughters and golden retriever.

Sue George is a kidney patient, with 27 years of experience who started on dialysis in 1997. She received a transplant in July of 1999 but had many setbacks. In October of 2000 she lost her transplanted kidney. Sue went back on dialysis and has been ever since. She now works with NKF as a Peer Mentor and work with KCM of Lincoln as a Mentor and try to improve how dialysis is introduced into patients' lives. She feels she has a lot of understanding of dialysis and transplant to help patients deal with the emotional side of the process. Sue is married to her husband Marty of 17 years, and they have 3 wonderful grown children. They also have 1 dog and 1 cat. She works as a secretary at St John Lutheran Church.  In her free time she loves to read and garden.

Additional resources:

NKF Peers

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When will the artificial kidney be ready for human use? Learn more about the progress of the artificial kidney and how it will affect someone's quality of life from expert Shuvo Roy, Ph.D.

Shuvo Roy, PhD is a bioengineer focusing on the development of medical devices to address unmet clinical needs through strong collaboration and a multidisciplinary approach. Dr. Roy is a professor at the University of California, San Francisco in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences (BTS). In addition, he serves as the Technical Director of The Kidney Project and is a founding member of the UCSF Pediatric Device Consortium. He has developed and currently teaches a course on medical devices, diagnostics, and therapeutics and regularly lectures on the medical device design process to UCSF graduate students and to national and international academic and industry audiences. He is the author of more than 100 publications and co-author of three book chapters, and holds multiple patents for device developments.

Additional Resources 

Transplantation Resources (Transplants For All)

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When a kidney from a deceased donor becomes available, it is scored on a system called the Kidney Donor Profile Index (KDPI). How does the KDPI work and is it accurate at predicting possible transplant survival compared to a lower KDPI donation or a living donor? On this episode, we speak with experts to get the facts.

Nichole Jefferson is a kidney transplant recipient and active member of NKF’s Kidney Advocacy Committee. She has attended every Kidney Patient Summit with NKF in Washington, D.C. since 2014, representing the states of Iowa and Texas. Presently, she is the Co-Chair of the NKF Kidney Advocacy Committee’s Diversity & Health Equity Advisory Committee. In this position, she shares her experiences and advocates for kidney disease awareness and needs.  This is a way for her to pay it forward to her community.

Anne Huml, MD, MS is a transplant nephrologist and clinical researcher in the Department of Kidney Medicine within the Cleveland Clinic’s Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute.  She is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. One of her primary research focuses is on health disparities in kidney disease, particularly on access to kidney transplant. She has worked on research teams to: improve access to the kidney transplant waiting list through the use of patient navigators; evaluate deceased donor organ offers to patients at the top of the waiting list; and investigate access to kidney transplant and transplant outcomes in large, national databases.

Additional Resources 

Transplantation Resources (Transplants For All)

Underutilized Kidneys

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It’s hard to keep up with all the new diets that cycle through news outlets and social media. Do you know which ones are right for you and your kidney health? On this episode, you will hear from experts on how to find the diet that's right for you and how to stick to it.

Amanda Hays, MS, RDN, LD is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist in Austin, TX with over a decade of experience serving thousands of people across all stages of chronic kidney disease. As the owner of Relish Nutrition Therapy, she specializes in taking the most powerful, research-based medical nutrition therapy recommendations and practically implementing them into real life without sacrificing the joy of food. She believes a healthy diet starts with a healthy relationship with food and that everyone with kidney disease deserves access to quality care and support. .

Jane DeMeis, MS, ODCP became involved with the National Kidney Foundation when she was diagnosed in 2018 with stage 4 kidney disease. She was the Director of Education and Organizational Development for U R Medicine Home Care. She is now a certified Kidney Coach. She has supported local cooking classes with recommendations for kidney friendly meals. She works with patients who have just been diagnosed with CKD at either level 3 b or 4 and have been given a diet to follow and need help on how to manage their eating and living with CKD diagnosis. 

Additional Resources 

Nutrition and Kidney Health

Kidney-Friendly Recipes

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Coping with kidney disease and dialysis can be difficult. Sometimes you have to think outside the box! Have you considered music or art therapy? Today Social Worker Melissa Fry and patient Steve Light are here to share their experiences with using music and art as coping strategies.

In this episode we spoke with, 

Melissa Fry, MSW, CAPSW is a dialysis social worker at Mile Bluff Medical Center. She has worked in the dialysis unit for the past 25 years. She has focused on assisting her patients with anxiety, depression and other mental health issues. She has used music as one technique to assist her patients with coping with various life stressors.

Steven Light is an artist from Swindon UK. He used his art as a way to express himself though a second wave of kidney failure, and created an exhibition around this experience called ‘Fistula’. His brother lovingly donated a kidney to him in July 2022 and both have fully recovered.

Additional Resources 

Effect of music therapy on dialysis patients

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You may have heard the buzzword superfoods but what are they and do they have special qualities? Board-certified renal dietitian, Jen Hernadez is here to break it down.

In this episode we spoke with,

Jen Hernandez RDN, CSR, LDN- Jen Hernandez is a registered dietitian and a certified specialist in renal nutrition. She has served the kidney community in dialysis clinics as well as with the National Kidney Foundation of Hawaii to help spread awareness of kidney disease and strive for prevention with early detection and interventions. In 2018, Jen founded Plant-Powered Kidneys. Jen uses her virtual private practice to help people in all stages of kidney disease, from stage one through transplant, to provide evidence-based nutrition guidelines and recommendations. The clients and students of Plant-Powered Kidneys learn and implement the fundamentals to keep their kidney function so that they can delay or even prevent kidney failure and the need for dialysis.

Additional Resources 

Superfoods 

Superfoods Blog

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Clinical trials exist to help prevent, screen for, diagnose, or treat diseases and other health problems. Without them, we would not have new treatments or other advances in health and medicine. But how are the clinical trial endpoints, or the preferred outcomes of these trials determined? Today, Anthony Gucciardo NKF’s Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, Dr. Joseph Vassalotti, NKF’s Chief Medical Officer, and Kent Bressler, a Patient advocate and FSGS patient, discuss this and more.

In this episode we heard from: 

Dr. Joseph Vassalotti MD

Dr. Vassalotti is the Chief Medical Officer of the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) and Clinical Professor of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology, at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. At NKF, his major focus is implementation of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines in chronic kidney disease (CKD). He led collaborations to develop the Kidney Health Evaluation for Adults with Diabetes quality measure to improve evidenced based estimated glomerular filtration rate and albuminuria testing to guide detection, risk stratification and interventions proportional to risk in the U.S. He also served as PI for an AARP-funded Kidney Health Evaluation for Adults with Diabetes to analyze quality measure satisfaction with detection, evidenced-based

Anthony Gucciardo

Anthony is responsible for forging and maintaining relations with key external stakeholders across a wide range of industries, to advance NKF’s mission and objectives, along with those of its partner organizations.  Anthony oversees two national Corporate Development Teams, focused on securing revenue necessary to ensure NKF programmatic excellence and impact.  He has been with the Foundation since 2002. Prior to NKF, Anthony was a Hematopoietic Stem Cell Technologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, where he was responsible for processing autogeneic/allogeneic bone marrow and peripheral blood stem cells for transplantation. He holds a master’s degree in Biochemistry from Columbia University.

Kent Bressler

Kent is a retired RN who was diagnosed with FSGS in 1984, and received a living donor transplant from his brother Kip in 1987. Kent is an active advocate for preemptive kidney transplant and has on the recommendation of NKF worked closely with the DoD and PCORI as a consumer peer reviewer. He is an NKF peer mentor and advocate who has collaborated on an editorial “Change in Albuminuria and GFR as End Points for Clinical Trials in Early Stages of Chronic Kidney Disease,” published in AJKD in 2019. He will also be participating in the development of the new NKF Patient Network serving on the Data Input and Integration Committee. He has been an active hill advocate for the NKF for six years and was the proud recipient of the 2017 Richard K. Salick Advocacy Award. Kent is also an Army Veteran and retired from the Veterans administration as an RN. He is the co-founder of Kidney Solutions a not for profit program in Texas that assists patients and families in the transplant process and in finding a donor. He is currently an assistant team leader for Region 7. Kent and Cathy Bressler have been married for 50 years and their family consists of Gretchen and Todd Rossington and their son Colt and Celeste and Alex Brown and their children John Banks, Catherine and Alexis Brown.

Additional Resources: 

Find Clinical Trials 

Clinical Trial Q&A 

Xenotransplantation Info 

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You may have heard the term mindfulness before but what does it mean, what are the benefits, and how can you integrate mindfulness into your life? On today’s episode Gary Petingola a Social Worker certified to teach Mindfulness-Based Stress Reductionexplains all this and more.

In this episode we heard from, 

Gary Petingola MSW, RSW

Gary has had a strong presence with the National Kidney Foundation - Council of Nephrology Social Workers since 2000 having co-planned the Professional Councils Conference in Toronto.  As a regular presenter at the NKF Spring Clinical Meetings, Gary recently participated in a NKF Live Facebook event on the topic of Vaccines, Pandemic Fatigue, and Mindfulness. Gary’s book - The Response: Practising Mindfulness In Your Daily Life (2020) was inspired by his work in nephrology. Gary is qualified to teach Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction through the Center for Mindfulness, UMASS and Certified through the Mindfulness Center, Brown University School of Public Health. Gary has co-founded Mindfulness on the Rocks - Meditation Solutions for Maximum Life Impact. 

Additional resources: 

Books:

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindful

Headspace

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