A Letter from The Transplant Center at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center
Thank you for your interest in living kidney donation. Please complete our online donor health screen at www.pslmc.com/signmeup to see if you qualify to move forward with the next steps. The link I provided will take you directly to One Medical Passport which is the program we use for our donor health screen. Click on the green “register” button to begin. When you are prompted for a procedure location please choose Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center (PSLMC) from the dropdown menu. You may be asked for a procedure date, if so, please enter the date that you are filling out the health screen. Do not enter your name when asked for the recipient’s name. Please enter JULIA ARONSON. You do not need to know the recipient’s date of birth even though you’ll be asked for this information. You’ll fill out some demographic information and then you’ll be asked questions about your and your family’s medical history. It will probably take about 5-10 minutes to complete.
After submitting the health screen, you will receive a call within 72 business hours from one of our Living Kidney Donor Nurse Coordinators letting you know if you meet the basic criteria to move forward with the evaluation process. If you do qualify to move forward, we will not be able to proceed with your evaluation until your intended recipient has been accepted as a transplant candidate. Julia started her own evaluation for transplant candidacy on December 3, 2020, but official acceptance into the PSLMC Transplant Program will take several months to determine.
All of the testing related to the donor evaluation is done here at PSLMC in Denver, and the testing/evaluation process takes a total of 2 days. It usually only takes about 1 month from start to finish to determine if a person is a donor candidate. This can vary, however, based on many different factors. The two days consists of medical and psychosocial testing. We are trying to determine if a person is medically, mentally, emotionally, and financially stable to be a donor. We are trying to evaluate your short- and long-term risks of living kidney donation based on the testing and evaluations you will have. A lot of things are taken into account when determining a person’s donor candidacy, not just the health of the kidneys.
Testing to determine if you are a donor candidate and the surgery/hospitalization itself, if you get approved to donate, are covered by the recipient’s insurance. Travel expenses, lodging, and lost wages from taking time off of work are not covered; however, there are assistance programs available for those who qualify. Also, you must be up-to-date on all of your age- and gender-appropriate cancer screenings prior to donating, i.e., PAP smear for women, mammogram for women 40 and over, and colonoscopy for those 50 and over. The cost for this is something that is your responsibility (we do not do these tests or pay for them as they are screenings you should already be doing at regular intervals regardless of whether or not you want to be a living kidney donor).
Living donors have a completely different team working with them than the team working with the recipient, and the donor evaluation process is kept private and confidential from the recipient due to privacy laws. It is purposely kept separate for a multitude of reasons. We are unable to share any information about you with the recipient (name, if you’ve called, where you’re at with the evaluation process, etc.), and we are unable to share any information about the recipient with you. You are able to opt out of the evaluation at any time during the process without any sort of penalty or judgement. You will always have the full support of the living donor team. You are free to share as much or as little information as you like with the recipient.
I've provided some videos, and links on living kidney donation and the evaluation process which should help to answer any questions you may have.
Video 1: Introduction to Live Kidney Donation
Video 2:The Live Kidney Donor Evaluation Process
Video 3: Live Kidney Donor Process & Considerations
Video 4: Kidney Paired Donation & Living Donor Champion Program
https://pslmc.com/specialties/transplant-services - PSLMC Transplant Center website
http://www.livedonortoolkit.com/ - American Society Transplantation
http://www.livedonortoolkit.com/medical-toolkit - American Society of Transplantation
https://www.unos.org/donation/living-donation/ - United Network for Organ Sharing (aka, “the list”)
https://www.americantransplantfoundation.org/ - The American Transplant Foundation
https://www.kidney.org/transplantation/livingdonors#livingdonation - The National Kidney Foundation
https://www.donatelife.net/types-of-donation/ - Donate Life
Christine Opp, R.N. | Kidney Transplant Center Living Donor Coordinator
The Transplant Center at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center
1601 E. 19th Ave. Suite 5050
Denver, CO 80218
Ph: 720-754-3127
Fax: 720-754-2107 or 1-855-879-1423
Work Days: Tues-Fri
Transplant Office Hours: 8 AM-4:30 PM Mon-Fri