Carol Mattix Award

This award was established in honor of Carol Mattix, a home dialysis training nurse of the last century who worked tirelessly to improve the lives of kidney patients.

Lisa Koester's career in caring for kidney patients started in the mid-1990s as a dialysis nurse. She had many roles, from taking care of incenter hemodialysis, home dialysis to acute dialysis to hospital-based dialysis/phresis. Lisa's career took a turn when she decided to pursue her masters in nursing and adult nurse practitioner certification. Lisa completed graduate school in 2000 with every intent to pursue adult medicine, however, nephrology kept a hold on her, and she found a position at Washington University School of Medicine renal division as a renal nurse practitioner. Lisa’s career has been in the nephrology division at Washington University for the last 24 years. Initially, she was hired to round on ICHD patients was quickly led into starting home hemodialysis program in 2001 and then into home modalities. Lisa continues to study ICHD and home dialysis patients and now has taken on a new challenge of chronic kidney disease education for all stages of CKD. This has allowed her to manage patients throughout their "life plan" with CKD. Lisa’s passion is for the patients and their care partners to realize she is there to advocate for them in their journey.