In 50th Anniversary Year, Northwest Kidney Centers Gives Clyde Shields Distinguished Service Award to All Its Dialysis Patients

SEATTLE, Feb. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Northwest Kidney Centers is honored to present the 2012 Clyde Shields Distinguished Service Award to all the patients whose lives it has sustained with dialysis treatments over its 50-year history.   

The award is named for machinist Clyde Shields, who in March 1960 became the first person in the world to receive dialysis on an ongoing basis. Shields received the first Scribner shunt, a breakthrough dialysis delivery method developed in Seattle. Although Shields' kidneys had failed – a death sentence before the innovation – the shunt and regular dialysis helped him survive another 11 years.

Northwest Kidney Centers presents the award – its highest honor – to people who make significant contributions to the welfare of kidney patients through advocacy, clinical care or research.

"It seems fitting that upon the occasion of our 50 years of service to people living with kidney failure that we honor all patients," said Northwest Kidney Centers president and CEO Joyce F. Jackson. "Between January 1962 and December 2011 we have served more than 10,000 patients in the Puget Sound region, and each one of them is a hero."

A nephrologist nominated all patients by saying, "Dialysis demands an enormous price of kidney patients, one which can be paid only with patience, courage, tolerance and grace. From this challenge, the rest of us learn the meaning of fortitude."

About the Clyde Shields Distinguished Service Award: Northwest Kidney Centers bestows the Clyde Shields Distinguished Service Award on a living individual who has contributed significantly to the welfare of kidney patients through advocacy, clinical care or research.

About Northwest Kidney Centers: In 2012, Northwest Kidney Centers is celebrating 50 years since its founding as the first out-of-hospital dialysis organization in the world. The nonprofit provides the majority of dialysis care in King and Clallam counties, educates the public about kidney health, and collaborates with UW Medicine in the Kidney Research Institute. Northwest Kidney Centers' staff of 565 delivers more than 226,000 treatments per year in 14 dialysis centers and almost all of the area's hospitals, as well as supervising more than 200 people who give themselves dialysis at home.

For more information, go to www.nwkidney.org.

SOURCE Northwest Kidney Centers