I've been asked to contribute a chapter on "A Patient's View of Vascular Access" in a book on Vascular Access for ESRD professionals. I'd appreciate your listing the 3 most important points you would stress when educating or reminding patients about hemodialysis VA. For practical reasons I'm limiting entries to 3, though I'm well aware many more than 3 are very important.

Please list your professional position, e.g. Nurse, Administrator, SocialWorker,etc. and the number of years as an ESRD professional.

I'd appreciate your responding within 10 days and please feel free to respond to me personally: johnnewm@aol.com

I look forward to urinalysis, and Thank You!

I'm a health policy analyst and researcher specializing in ESRD, and a strong patient advocate. My kidneys failed in 1971, followed by 16 years of home hemodialysis, a few years with a cadaver transplant, a few years of PD, and I've been enjoying the extraordinary gift of my daughter's live kidney donation since Thanksgiving 1993.