Kidney Transplant Specialists

These nurse coordinators oversee the care of living donors both before and after transplant surgery. Your coordinator will set up appointments to meet your whole multidisciplinary team, from social worker to surgeon. Your coordinator also will make appointments for the various tests you will need to determine whether you are a good candidate for donation. All these tests can be completed in 1 to 2 days. In addition, your coordinator will provide extensive education on donation.

Loyola’s transplant chaplains are essential members of our patients’ health-care team. Just like the doctors and nurses they work with, their experience is specific to the Transplant Center. They understand the emotional, spiritual and physical needs that are particular to our transplant patients. Our chaplains listen for the needs beneath the medical needs – that which is emotional, spiritual and sacramental. They know that even though symptoms may be similar, each person’s illness is unique; each person’s journey to healing is individual.

Our chaplains start the journey alongside our patients and their families and are available through all critical stages, providing a confidential outlet for hopes and fears, helping to facilitate important decisions.

Transplant chaplains are an outreach of support that our patients and families can count on when looking to find meaning in their situation, along with the resources of faith and spirituality to cope and heal.

Other Pastoral Care Services include:

• The Paul V. Galvin Memorial Chapel is open 24 hours a day and is located on the lower level of the hospital near the East Elevators, those nearest to the gift shop.
• Chapel services and a wide variety of other religious programs are televised to patient rooms on Channel 4.
• Upon your request, we can contact your church, parish, synagogue, mosque or house of worship.
• Catholic: Catholic Mass is celebrated at noon Sunday through Friday and on Holy Days (there is no Mass on Saturday). Bedside Communion, Anointing of the Sick, Reconciliation (confession) and emergency Baptism are available upon request.
• Protestant: We offer bedside prayers, visits and Communion.
• Jewish: Pastoral Care Services can arrange for a rabbi to visit.

Your transplant dietitian’s role is to ensure that you understand your individualized nutrition plan and are motivated about following it. At your initial visit, your dietitian will assess your gastrointestinal symptoms, consider possible vitamin and mineral deficiencies, conduct a nutrition/weight history and provide dietary education.  At the end of this visit, the dietitian will help you create nutritional goals and - if further education or intervention is required - provide you with additional direction.  Your transplant dietitian will meet with you during each of your hospital visits, adjusting your goals based on your progress and medical condition. With any additional nutrition concerns, you are strongly encouraged to call or to send an e-mail to your dietitian.  

Nurse practitioners work collaboratively with physicians and other members of your medical team to provide you with exceptional care, starting with your transplant evaluation and testing all the way through post-transplant management.

Nurse practitioners care for patients when they are in the hospital or at a doctor’s visit. They prescribe medications, diagnose patients and work with physicians to develop treatment plans.  They are also experts in patient education before and after transplantation.  Nurse practitioners are adept at recognizing and understanding the signs of rejection and infection. They will instruct patients about the importance of timely medical treatment and the serious consequences if medical advice isn’t followed or symptoms are ignored. They also work closely with patients to manage transplant-related  complications.

The transplant process can be an emotionally difficult time for patients and their families. Therefore, many transplant teams across the country, including Loyola, have psychologists as part of the transplant team. Often patients are confused about the rationale for seeing a psychologist during the work-up for a medical procedure. Research has shown that prior history of mood problems, substance use issues, lack of social support and noncompliance are all associated with worse medical outcomes after surgery. Psychologists can help to identify and address these issues prior to transplant to help improve outcomes.

A transplant psychologist’s main roles are to conduct an initial evaluation to determine patients’ candidacy for transplant from a psychosocial perspective, and to provide ongoing supportive follow-up throughout the waiting, recovery and rehabilitative phases of transplant. 

During the initial evaluation, patients may be asked questions about their current lifestyle, mood, coping skills, social support, adherence to doctors’ recommendations and overall functioning. This information is invaluable to the treatment team before and after your transplant surgery because it provides clues about how the patient will react in high-stress situations and insight into the patient’s coping strengths and weaknesses. The goal is not to find reasons why the patient should not be approved for transplant. Instead, the goal is to identify areas that need to be addressed to help patients do well with transplant. Our transplant psychologists are committed to providing the necessary care to help patients function and cope adequately during all phases of the transplant process.