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Heather Henderson, DO
Clinical Nephrologist, Saint Clair Specialty Physicians
Detroit, Michigan

Dr. Henderson is assistant director of peritoneal dialysis at SCSP. She has been instrumental in developing a successful acute PD program and growing their PD census for the first time in over a decade. Dr. Henderson went to Michigan State University Medical school and did residency at McLaren MaComb prior to doing her fellowship at St John Hospital and Medical Center.

Urgent start PD is the Michigan Wolverines of Nephmadness…forgotten for years but coming back with a vengeance.  Unlike U of M, urgent start PD is dominating the Big dance.  With only 7% of incident dialysis patients in the US initiated on PD and as high as 80% of incident patients starting with a tunneled venous catheter (which has the highest morbidity and mortality), urgent start PD is a solution to a long standing problem.  Since Ghaffari pioneered the urgent start PD movement there are now over 100 urgent start programs in the US…and gaining fans fast.

• Data from multiple centers show survival similar to HD with minimal complications
• More patients are given the opportunity to use PD as their modality
• Urgent start programs are showing high retention rates, which is essential to growing PD use in the US
• Urgent start PD prevents tunneled CVC placement
• It allows patient freedom and flexibility of choice in modality
• Helps maintain that residual renal function

It appears that Urgent Start PD has all the right elements to end up on top!

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