What does recovery really look like for someone who chooses to donate a kidney while otherwise healthy? In 2025, Ailsa Sirois and Juna Kim, a team of nurses at St. Paul’s Hospital, set out to better understand the physical and emotional experiences of living kidney donors through an ODTRF-supported Providence Health Care Research Challenge Grant. After interviewing 20 donors about their recovery experiences, the team is now analyzing their stories and identifying themes that could help strengthen donor care and support.
In recognition of Living Kidney Donation Awareness Week, we caught up with Ailsa and Juna to learn what they have heard from donors, what has surprised them along the way, and how they hope this research will help shape the experience of future living kidney donors.
Q: Now that recruitment and interviews are nearly complete, how has the project evolved since it began?
A: Over the last year, our team focused on finalizing our study methods and procedures. After Research Ethics review and approval early this year, we were excited to finally start talking to donors about their experiences and asking the burning questions we’ve been curious about. We were very grateful that so many donors were willing to share their experiences. We met as a team to review our interview guide several times to ensure our interview questions were capturing important aspects of donor care and experiences. In the end, we interviewed 20 living donors. Now, we’re in the stages of analyzing our data and developing themes within our data.
Q: What has been most meaningful about hearing directly from living kidney donors about their recovery experiences?
A: The most meaningful part of this work has been hearing how much kidney donation impacted the donors. Many donors shared that being a kidney donor had a profound, life-changing impact for both the recipient and them. The stories shared were significant, often emotional, and very eye-opening. The interviews with donors reminded us why living kidney donation is so special.
Q: Why is understanding the living donor experience so important to improving transplant care?
A: Understanding donor experiences is important because living donors are unique. Unlike other patients, donors are choosing to have surgery at a time when they are healthy, and donors are often used to being in a supportive role to their loved one living with kidney disease. Some donors talked about the experience of being a ‘patient’ for the first time, which was especially relevant for donors who never had a prior hospital admission or surgery. As nurses, we are curious about patient contexts and what matters most to the patient. We need to be aware of potential blind spots and gaps in care, which makes the opportunity to do research like this so important!
Q: How do you hope this research will shape the care and support provided to future living kidney donors?
A: We hope that the results of this study can help improve nursing and hospital practices by highlighting strengths and areas for improvement in living donor care. In our interviews, we inquired about both clinical and emotional expectations and experiences of donors, because we wanted to understand and document different aspects of donor recovery. We hope our research findings will help us better support living kidney donors at St. Paul’s Hospital, especially as we move into the new St. Paul’s Hospital early next year!
Q: As we recognize Living Kidney Donation Awareness Month, what message would you like to share with living kidney donors and those considering living donation?
A: We want to thank all the living kidney donors for donating their kidney, and for sharing their time to support our research! As kidney nurses, we have witnessed how donation is a life-saving gift for those who have been living with kidney disease and possibly dialysis. It can be difficult to decide if living organ donation is for you. The experiences shared during our project have been generally very positive, and we encourage everyone to learn more about the donation process, as well as past donors’ experiences. On that note, stay tuned for our study report due in 2027!
To help fund research like Juna and Ailsa’s, please consider donating to ODTRF today: