BALTIMORE—On the evening of Sunday, October 7, Home Dialyzors United (HDU) will honor four recipients with two new awards for outstanding medical practice and organizational achievement. The awards will be formally presented at the HDU awards banquet, which opens its third annual Meet Up & Conference in Baltimore, MD on October 7, 2012.
Doctors Michael Kraus and Robert Lockridge will each be awarded the Christopher R. Blagg Distinguished Service Award at Group’s Annual Conference in Baltimore. Northwest Kidney Centers and NxStage Medical will each also be honored with the HDU Pioneer Award for outstanding achievement in the advancement of home hemodialysis (HHD).
“The two awards, new this year, are designed to recognize and spotlight the work of the most outstanding nephrologists and renal professionals in the world today, and the leading dialysis providers and medical equipment manufacturers, who have done the most to advance the treatment of end-stage renal disease through home dialysis modalities,” said Richard J. Berkowitz, president and founder of Home Dialyzors United.
Doctors Kraus and Lockridge, both internationally recognized leaders in home dialysis treatment, will receive the first Christopher R. Blagg Distinguished Service Award, named after renal medical pioneer Dr. Christopher R. Blagg, executive director Emeritus of the Northwest Kidney Centers and professor Emeritus of Medicine at the University of Washington.
Now retired, Blagg has been involved with dialysis since 1958, published more than 300 papers and book chapters, and has devoted his professional life to the advancement of home dialysis, longer and more frequent hemodialysis, and the history of dialysis—all aimed at improving the lives of people on dialysis.
He has won numerous awards and honors, and served on advisory groups for—the National Institutes of Health, the Medicare End-Stage Renal Disease Program, FDA, other organizations, and dialysis equipment manufacturers, as well as working with Congress on legislation related to kidney disease.
