Kandace Landreneau is a native of Missouri (a neutral state) , now lives in Louisiana (a confederate state and belief that the South will rise again), and is on faculty at the University of Texas - it is the 21st Century!!. She received her PhD in Nursing from the University of Missouri. During her final year in PhD graduate school, she was awarded a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Symptom Management at the University of California in San Francisco. As a research fellow, she completed two-years of postdoctoral research in renal failure and renal transplantation.
Professionally, she has worked in critical care including surgical, medical, and burn specialty units. She progressed to acute dialysis nursing and later became a clinical transplant coordinator for kidney, liver, and heart transplant patients. For the last 20 years, she has remained active in the renal transplant/failure arena doing research and being actively involved in professional nephrology organizations. She has now moved into nursing academia. Among her many achievements, she received a national service award for Chairing the North American Transplant Coordinator's Organization's Ethics Committee. She has been featured on a national radio show and has worked with the U.S. government concerning health care access within the Medicare system and has testified before Medicare on behave of renal failure patients and their need of access to all renal replacement therapies, especially transplantation. Currently, she is on faculty at the University of Texas where she continues her renal research program and teaches in the PhD program.
Kandace has had a life-long interest in renal failure and transplantation, beginning at three years of age. She was diagnosed with kidney failure, which was terminal for children in the 1960s since dialysis was not commonly available and transplantation was not available either. After a miraculous healing from God, she now feels that she has come full circle where she continues to be intimately involved with the care of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) patients and the miracle of renal replacement therapies.
After joining a university based transplant team, 25 years ago, she was able to continue one of her passions by their partnership in aiding those with CKD. She has co-authored several published transplantation and renal failure articles, two transplant books, and several videos. She has presented transplantation topics at local, national and international conferences. She has remained active in national and international transplant nursing organizations, has been a member of ANNA for 25 years, and remains active in North American Transplant Coordinators Organization Ethics Committee and has been a member of this national committee for over 15 years.