Member Login About NKF Recursos en Español

CHAIR MESSAGES

July 19, 2023, 10:22pm EDT

CNSW Chair Message
Dori Muench, MSW, LCSW, NSW-C, FNKF
CNSW Chair

I am so excited to offer my first entry to RenaLink as NKF-CNSW Chair. I’d like to take a moment to introduce myself. I'm Dori Muench and am your incoming chair. I work as a transplant social worker in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where I live with my husband, two daughters, and golden retriever. I have worked in the field of nephrology for the past 16 years, beginning in Dialysis. I am so excited to represent and fulfill your needs as Nephrology Social Workers. I would like to thank Melissa Fry, who has led us through COVID, and farewell to Jen Bruns, who completed her Immediate Past Chair term last winter. We are excited about our incoming chair, Kevin Ceckowski, and Tiffena Pierce's re-election as Region II/IV representative. Additionally, our Program Chair, Lisa Hall, and co-chair, Renee Bova-Collis are already actively planning for SCM 2024 in Long Beach!

As we are coming out of Covid and transitioning from virtual-only events to hybrid events, I hope you will take advantage of all that CNSW has to offer. We are hoping to reinvigorate our Journal of Nephrology Social Work (JNSW) with your contributions. We would love your submissions about case studies, best practices, and any exciting research that you are doing with your team. Please contact me or any of our council members for help or suggestions to support any of these endeavors. As NKF embarks on its TRANSPLANTS FOR ALL™ initiative, it’s important for us to remember that this means anybody along the continuum of kidney disease, from pre-dialysis to dialysis to managing an existing transplant to increasing our patients’ health awareness. You will see some exciting new educational pieces coming from the NKF to support these goals and our work in educating our patients.

If there are any programs you’re excited about getting involved in or have suggestions, please reach out to me or the council and let us know. I hope all who attended the Spring Clinical Meetings left full of knowledge and motivation to bring all of those interventions and support to our patients. I look forward to hearing from you and supporting you over the next two years!

CRN Chair Message
Nikki Stevenson, RD, CD
CRN Chair

My journey to becoming Chair of the NKF-CRN Executive Committee started 10 years ago at my local chapter. I was new to renal nutrition and felt I didn’t know enough, but after some prodding from others, I reluctantly took a position (as many of you might also have done). After one of the in-person local council meetings, I remember thinking— why weren’t there more RDs in the room? We had an amazing speaker with an encouraging and engaging topic. Well, this sent me down the rabbit hole in wanting to promote our local chapter.

Next thing you know, I’m creating postcards to send to all the dialysis centers’ dietitians in the state, creating a website to encourage membership, editing a newsletter, and hosting webinars. Mind you, this is all before Covid when webinars were not being used so widely. Why did I do all this? I wanted to make the meetings better and to reach more dietitians! After countless hours with my local chapter, I set my sights on our regional conference and then on the national level with NKF HQ.

So, why tell you about my journey? To inspire and encourage you to get involved! I knew nothing about the councils, finding speakers, websites, webinars, but I learned so much along the way. It has been such a rewarding experience and taken my career to places I wouldn’t have thought about before, and I’ve met so many passionate and dedicated dietitians. We all start out not knowing what to do or how to do it. But I was resilient and learned what was needed to promote renal nutrition and the role of a kidney dietitian.

Many of our local CRN chapters are struggling to find new leadership and volunteers to fill positions. It takes us all to build a program. My commitment with the Executive Committee in the next year is to provide more support for the local chapters with mentorship, creating toolkits and blueprints for those that are willing to step-up, and to increase local chapter involvement with NKF.

Change can’t happen unless someone is willing to make it happen.

CNNT Chair-Elect Message
Amy Proctor, RN. MSN, CDN
CNNT Chair-Elect

To our nurse and technician members, I’d like to start by introducing myself. My name is Amy Proctor, and I am the Chair-Elect of the Council of Nephrology Nurses and Technicians. I have worked as a nephrology nurse for over 20 years. To those of you who were able to attend this year’s Spring Clinical Meeting, I hope you enjoyed visiting my home state of Texas. I loved the meeting, and really appreciate how it has evolved over the years to include so much interdisciplinary content.

I would like to remind our member’s what the benefits of a CNNT membership are:

I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their summer, and I hope to see you all at next year’s SCM on May 14-18 in Long Beach, CA.

30 East 33rd Street, New York, NY 10016

© 2024 National Kidney Foundation Inc.