Lay summary
I am a kidney specialist concurrently completing a clinical research fellowship and a Masters in epidemiology. I aspire to improving the lives of people living in Aotearoa New Zealand by building research capacity and quality clinical evidence as a clinician-researcher in nephrology.
This study will explore the challenging experiences of patients requiring vascular access for haemodialysis. These challenges are associated with lower quality of life, higher healthcare utilisation, and an inequitably higher health burden among Māori and Pasifika and those in regional/rural areas. The project aims to describe who is at highest risk of complications of dialysis vascular access, to inform Aotearoa New Zealand-specific priority patient outcomes, and to design a randomised clinical trial informed by epidemiology and the patients’ and whānau voices. This will provide empirical evidence to address a high-burden treatment complication, and to design evaluation trials in partnership with patients, whānau and clinicians in Aotearoa New Zealand.