Passing the Gavel

Abstract

IN 1995, I was so overwhelmed with learning the ins and outs of renal nutrition that I could not imagine that I would one day emerge as a leader in the field. I have many people to thank. Without them, I would have never have spent the last 15 years of my life working with the most amazing people. These are my heroes. Rebekah Mani was the renal dietitian’s dietitian. Early inmy training, shewas consulted by theKansas City Zoo to tailor a renal diet for one of the zoo’s aging primates. I remember looking on in amazement thinking, ‘‘When I grow up, I want to be just like her!’’Trained in India,Rebekahbrought experience from a country in which many could not afford dialysis. She worked with families who had no choice but to see their loved ones spend the remaining years of their lives without life-sustaining dialysis, as it was notwithin their reach.Her perspective on a person’s well-being always outweighed the nutrition guidelines I had been trained to follow. In her mind, restricting life was not a life. The renal lifestyle needed to be molded to fit all lifestyles and personal goals. She taughtme to lookpast theoryand rigid diets to SEE the person behind the patient. She taught me to LISTEN to a patient’s life story to understand the PERSON and not view them as a patient. She taught me VALUE and COMFORT in all the lives that we touched. Drs. Arnold Chonko, Franz Winklehofer, Jerad Grantham,BenjaminCowley, andDennisDiedrich at the University of Kansas Medical Center provided me great medical training in the field of nephrology. Each doctor took his time explaining to me how medical and nutrition interventions intertwined and how each approach could not work without the other. This groupof extraordinary physicians considered the renal dietitian a PARTNER in the care of the renal patient. Each physician challenged me to learn more about the disease process and how to THINK OUTSIDE OF THE BOX when approaching this field. Each understood that