“Person-Centered Dialysis Care: A Patient’s Perspective” is the title of the Celeste Castillo Lee Memorial Lectureship, scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 9.
The speaker will be Derek L. Forfrang, a patient advocate who has been a type 1 diabetes patient since age 10. He was diagnosed with CKD in 1990 at age 25, and has been an end stage kidney disease patient since 1998. He has been treated using various modalities including transplantation, peritoneal dialysis, and in-center hemodialysis. He has been a second-time transplant patient since 2013. He received a pancreas transplant in 1998.
Mr. Forfrang chairs the Kidney Patient Advisory Council of the National Forum of ESRD Networks and is a member on the forum’s board of directors. He chairs the Patient Advisory Committee of the Health Services Advisory Group (HSAG) ESRD Network #17 and also the Network #17 board of directors. He also chairs the National Kidney Foundation’s (NKF) kidney advocacy committee and its public policy committee.
He is an active member of the Making Dialysis Safer for Patients Coalition, which works with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He co-leads the fluid management innovation project of the Kidney Health Initiative and also co-leads the “My Dialysis Care Plan” project of the University of North Carolina Kidney Center.
He has spoken at many meetings and conferences, such as an NKF Symposium on payment models from a patient perspective, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services quality conferences, and a Renal Physicians Association annual meeting. He co-chaired the NKF Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Stakeholders’ Conference. He has also participated in several technical expert panels for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Mr. Forfrang was the first recipient of NKF’s Celeste Castillo Lee Patient Engagement Award.
