HR!Day374 - Integrating a holistic approach to kidney health
Day 374 Tue 11/30/21 Integrating a holistic approach to kidney health
- --- Humanity Rising Day 374 - Tuesday November 30, 2021 (GoTo Bottom)
Kidneys are a major organ system. Regulating blood pressure, buffering the acid-alkali balance in the blood, ensuring healthy haemoglobin and bone mineralisation, as well as removal of waste through filleting and urination. And much more. As the body and mind do not operate as separate systems, deepening our understanding of how the many variables of kidney health all dance together, feels increasingly important. Focussing the conversation more on integration rather than a divisive approach, in order to harness greater efficiencies. And indeed see hopeful change happening in our lifetimes. Renal medicine traditionally is, highly medicalised and clinical in many ways, yet has great potential to open up. It does mean the current status quo needs challenging to allow change to percolate through. This can be scary. Change on this level means discomfort, especially for the old patterns that dominate decisions. Three women, all who work in kidney health in their own unique context, start up this powerful conversation. Noting that holistic means wholeness and healing. So it is very complex and nuanced as to what will work and indeed resonate for each person. Whether it be a patient or a medic/Healthcare Practitioner. Both sides matter. The whole matters.
Presenters
- Ciara Jean Roberts is a holistic health educator, writer and speaker. A yoga teacher and naturopathic nutritionist of 10 years, with a career before that in credit risk, banking. Her adventures with her kidneys since 4 years old, have been deep alchemy for her to explore the complexities of being human. Dialysis and kidney transplantation are treatments she has experienced, her second kidney transplant being in October 2019. The conflation of being a ‘patient’ in the NHS for over 30 years, alongside her curiosity about the health system, has lead to a broad understanding of the chasm that exists between orthodox renal medicine and a truly holistic approach. Strong seeds sown in her childhood growing up in Zambia, stay with her today. Africa lives in her heartbeat. She believes through the power of breath, embodied movement, felt experience and a willingness to integrate our difficult experiences, is all about the sacred remembering of our innate wholeness. That life isn’t happening to you, it is revealing who you really are. She is the yoga teacher for Kidney Beam.
- Dr Sharlene Greenwood is a Consultant Physiotherapist at King’s College Hospital, an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at King’s College London, and a NIHR post-doctoral research fellow. She co-chairs the UK Kidney Research Consortium, and Kidney Quality Improvement Partnership (KQuIP), and is the President of the UK Kidney Association. Sharlene is an advanced clinical practitioner with 15 years of experience as a specialist renal physiotherapist. She leads one of the only commissioned renal exercise services in the UK, which includes renal rehabilitation, weight management, and specialist kidney transplant exercise clinics. Sharlene has a keen interest in holistic management and has recently developed Kidney Beam in partnership with Kidney Research UK and a medtech company Beam.
- Lina Johansson is a renal dietitian with over 20 years’ experience and a researcher, passionate about all things food related. She practices adapting people’s diets to aim to improve symptoms due to their kidney condition and improving life quality. Having been trained in the UK as a dietitian, she has come to realise how the medical model is centred on treating the illness and the condition very separate from the person. She is currently on a journey of understanding and expanding awareness of the meaning of “person-centred care”, how the clinical system operates and how this impacts on the people they serve. Her research is currently focused on the experiences of the “actors” within the kidney transplant setting (kidney transplant recipients , their loved ones as well as healthcare professionals) and the spaces that they experience the renal care service. The aim is for this work to kickstart a whole system approach where complex kidney self-care education is integrated to allow the kidney transplant recipient to embody this understanding, and to close the gap between those practising the medical model and those with the lived experience.
- Hannah Maple is a newly appointed consultant transplant surgeon working in South London. She is the chair of ELPAT - the section of the European Society for Organ Transplantation dedicated to exploring the Ethical, Legal and Psychosocial aspects of transplantation. Her research interests focus on the psychosocial aspects of living donation and pre-optimisation of patients prior to surgery. She is committed to person-centred care, empowerment and improving wellbeing whilst awaiting a transplant. In her spare time she enjoys spending time with her friends and family and is a fitness enthusiast. She learned, perhaps a little too late, that being sensitive is a strength rather than a weakness and that looking after herself is by far the best way to look after others.
Category
Community Health Governance & Politics
Presenters
