IT’S NOT EASY TO ASK a loved one—let alone a stranger—to donate their kidney to you.
But that’s the predicament the more than 90,000 people on a waiting list for a kidney find themselves in every year. Fewer than 20,000 are fortunate enough to get one, which extends and enhances their lives immeasurably. After one year of dialysis, people have a 15 to 20 percent mortality rate, with a five-year survival rate under 50 percent. Those who receive transplants have a five-year survival rate over 80 percent.
One of the nation’s largest kidney-transplant centers, the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, is pioneering new ways to recruit more live donors, particularly among people in marginalized communities where the need is greatest.“We first help patients craft an elevator speech to tell their story, then we help them share their story like a political campaign,” says Daagye Hendricks, one of two navigators in UAB’s living-donor program, created in 2017.
The four-week program involves teaching patients both conventional networking and out-of-the-box
