Nephrology Nurses’ Week
In recognition of Nephrology Nurses Week 2021, QUANTA joins the American Nephrology Nurses Association in celebrating and highlighting the impressive skills and knowledge of the nurses who care for kidney patients and improve their lives every single day.
Nephrology nursing is one of the most challenging nursing specialties. Nephrology nurses provide life-saving care for people of all ages who suffer from, or are at risk of kidney disease, including patients on dialysis and those who have received kidney transplants. Nephrology nurses can work in hospitals or outpatient clinics and often visit patients at home to offer support, monitor their health, and provide education.
Dialysis nurses spend a significant amount of time with their patients who come in several times per week for three to five hour treatments. These nurses frequently establish close, familial-like relationships with their patients. Nurses support their patients not only through the delivery of dialysis, but also help them through life challenges involving work, family, and education that kidney failure can create. They help patients come to terms with side effects that can affect mental health, mobility, and body image. Caring for seriously ill dialysis patients is both a privilege and a calling for nephrology nurses who know that only 35% of hemodialysis patients in the United States survive five years on dialysis without a transplant.
Nurses help patients to celebrate many life events and milestones in dialysis centers. These nurses know that cakes, balloons, gifts, and other thoughtful touches can have a big impact on helping patients to live their best lives despite the constraints of their dialysis routines. One young dialysis patient, Amy, remembers how the nurses on her unit went the extra mile to make her as comfortable as possible – even giving her foot massages when she suffered cramps. “I couldn’t have asked for a better group of nurses to help me get used to the scary world of dialysis,” she says.
Sarah, who has kidney disease, says that “when my health hits a bad patch and everyone is panicking, my kidney nurses always stay so calm and help me to feel calm too. They also understand that I still need to live my life and that there is more to me than blood work and test results.”
As a company dedicated to helping people on dialysis to live more freely, QUANTA honors and applauds dialysis nurses all over the world for their vital role in motivating people to take control of their health and helping their patients learn how to transition to self-care or home dialysis. In addition to their clinical skills, dialysis nurses use education, encouragement, and praise to build their patients’ confidence.
Ruth, a dialysis nurse who works on the QUANTA team, has over 30 years of experience providing dialysis care for people at all stages of life, including a newborn child who only weighed 2 lbs. “I feel strongly that the patients have impacted my life more than I have theirs,” says Ruth. “My hope and goal is to have made their lives on dialysis a little more tolerable and comfortable while providing safe care, maintaining their dignity, and improving their quality of life. Nursing has made me keenly aware and grateful for the gift of health and wellbeing.”
We thank all the nephrology nurses like Ruth who work so hard to help patients every way they can, and we hope that more nurses will feel inspired to consider a career in caring for kidney patients. For more information about the work of nephrology nurses and Nephrology Nurses Week, please visit http://www.annanurse.org.