{"id":66357,"date":"2021-05-03T14:45:37","date_gmt":"2021-05-03T18:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/?p=66357"},"modified":"2021-05-05T08:41:37","modified_gmt":"2021-05-05T12:41:37","slug":"transplant-social-worker-pays-it-forward-after-receiving-gift-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/05_03_2021\/transplant-social-worker-pays-it-forward-after-receiving-gift-of-life","title":{"rendered":"Social Work Graduate Pays it Forward After Receiving Gift of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leah Williams\u2019 next step is clear: she\u2019s going to grad school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just got notice that I was accepted into the MSW program at UToledo, so I can actually become, now, a renal social worker,\u201d she said. \u201cI wanted to work in transplant so I could help other people of color, like myself, obtain transplants.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that wasn\u2019t always the case. When Williams transferred to The University of Toledo in 2015, she had a different path in mind. She still intended to pursue social work, but at the time she had planned to work with children and families. Life, however, redirected that path.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ended up taking time off of school to have a kidney transplant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Graduation<\/a>

CELEBRATING SUCCESS:<\/strong> UToledo recognizes the Class of 2021 with a series of stories featuring students receiving their degrees at spring commencement<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

After recovering from her transplant at The University of Toledo Medical Center, Williams returned to school and refocused her undergraduate studies toward becoming a renal transplant social worker. She intends to work with African Americans and other people of color affected by kidney disease, helping them navigate the complicated journey toward a transplant.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was on dialysis for two years, I noticed that in the dialysis centers, there were a lot of African American people and people of color there who either did not qualify for transplants or didn\u2019t know how to qualify for transplants,\u201d she said. \u201cI made it my mission to go back to these centers and say \u2018Look, this isn\u2019t even about people of color. I just notice they are the most affected. They are overrepresented in chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease, because of a lot of preexisting conditions and other factors such as Type 2 diabetes and hypertension.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond simply navigating the transplant process, there is a great deal that goes into receiving a new organ. Social workers like Williams help patients \u2014 often older people \u2014 identify which services they may need after their transplant, in addition to helping them cope with what\u2019s often a significant psychological load.<\/p>\n

\"Leah<\/a>

Leah Williams is graduating with her bachelor’s degree in social work and will continue her education at UToledo in the master of social work program.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWe help people essentially change their lives so they can have this life-saving gift and move forward with a better life,\u201d Williams said. \u201cWe do assess them from the psychosocial perspective for transplants and their input is needed because every transplant is unique. There\u2019s a counseling aspect to it, too, because when you do receive a gift of life, it\u2019s usually from a deceased donor. And there\u2019s often a sense of guilt or wonderment about what had happened to the person that gave you your gift.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams hopes to work at a transplant center or dialysis center in the Toledo area, and she\u2019s already well on her way, interning at The University of Toledo Medical Center. Her internship is just the latest iteration of what\u2019s become a long relationship with the University, which helped Williams through the transplant process via Student Disability Services.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat department is very great. They help me a lot every semester, always asking \u2018Okay what do you need to do? What do you need us to do to support you?\u2019 That\u2019s always been their main focus,\u201d she said. \u201cJust every aspect, from using UTMC to receive my kidney transplant to working there now to finish my internship for my bachelor\u2019s degree, the University has always been a very strong point in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as she begins her next step, Williams plans to keep that mentality of helping others in mind. She received help during her undergraduate work, and now she plans to offer the same kind of help to others, both during and after her graduate studies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have some connections to dialysis centers in the Toledo area, so I\u2019m hoping I\u2019ll be able to get in somewhere after graduation and be able to help people,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s my life. Helping people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"Leah<\/a>

After recovering from her kidney transplant, Leah Williams refocused her studies toward becoming a renal transplant social worker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":869,"featured_media":66358,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,50,69,61,1,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66357"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/869"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66357"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66396,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66357\/revisions\/66396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}