Giving a kidney started with giving knowledge

Roxana Chicas, a research professor in Emory’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, was not confident in her nontraditional academic path until a mentor reassured her: “The teacher always arrives when the student is ready.”

That advice about timing recently resonated as she prepared to donate a kidney to her mentor, professor, and faculty colleague. Professor and biostatistician Vicki Stover Hertzberg, who directs the school’s Center for Data Science, had been waiting nine months for a transplant after being diagnosed with kidney failure.

The two professors’ personal relationship is only one aspect of their remarkable story.

Both long ago had personal experiences that made them aware of the high need for living kidney transplants and the safety of donation. At the No. 2-ranked School of Nursing, both women work on a research team that studies renal issues and other health problems related to heat exposure in farmworkers. And both say their life-giving partnership reflects their school’s caring connections.

Chicas was only one of several Emory employees who answered Hertzberg’s call for potential donors in mid-2021. While others matched enough to donate, Chicas was the closest match.

“I have no words to express my gratitude for the individuals who came forward including those who, ultimately, for one reason or another, could not be a donor,” Hertzberg said before the March 15 transplant surgery. “And for Roxana to do this
is just phenomenal. I find it overwhelming and very humbling.”

Most of us only need one kidney

Chicas’ first job at a pediatric office in Atlanta, when she was 18, exposed her to kidney issues and solutions. She translated for pediatric nephrologist Stephanie M. Jernigan, an associate professor of pediatrics at Emory School of Medicine.

“Children who were born with just one kidney often lived perfectly normal lives,” she says. “Other children who had kidney transplants did very well, even though it’s a very invasive surgery.”

She also learned to see her own intellectual potential.

Having come from El Salvador at age four and undocumented, Chicas had received temporary protective status that allowed her to work for the pediatricians. She helped them communicate with families who only spoke Spanish, and thought she might be smart enough to become a medical assistant so she could help them more. Pediatrician A. Gerald Reisman, MD, urged her to try nursing instead, and at age 28 Chicas enrolled in what is now Perimeter College at Georgia State University.

That educational decision led to Bridges to the Baccalaureate, an Emory program that nurtures minority students in research. With School of Nursing Dean Linda McCauley as her advisor, Chicas got a BSN and went directly into the doctoral program. She joined McCauley’s team working on farmworker health, which felt personal because her mother, Maria Chicas, farmed in El Salvador. Farmworkers are 35 times more likely to die from heat-related illnesses than any other profession, she says.

“I got lucky, because I could have been working out in the field,” Chicas says. “I’m not there because of sacrifices that my mom made, and many other Latino parents have made and by having a mentor who told me that I can be a professional.” 

A mentor in need

Hertzberg became Chicas’ professor and research teammate. From Florida, to Mexico, to Brazil, Chicas was in direct contact with farmworkers while Hertzberg worked to tell the story of the collected data.

“A wonderful mentor,” Chicas, 39, calls Hertzberg, 67. “She taught me that you can be smart and be strong in your career and yet still be very kind.”

As the director of the nursing school’s Center for Data Science, Hertzberg is an internationally recognized expert on “big data” and its impact on health care. She is widely known for her work measuring the social contacts in emergency departments and disease transmission on airplanes.

In late 2020, Hertzberg’s own bloodwork showed acute kidney injury, and when a restrictive diet didn’t improve function enough, she was referred for a kidney transplant in mid-2021.

Like Chicas, Hertzberg had learned about the disease long before through a family friend and others. She reached out to her network by email and social media.

“Ideally, a living donor is best,” she wrote. “A kidney from a living donor lasts on average 25 years, while a kidney for somebody who is about to have life support turned off is on average 12 years. Obviously, the 25 years is my preference . . . the wait for a kidney from the person on life support will take three to seven years.” She didn’t expect much response.

“I’m going to match”

Chicas jumped on Hertzberg’s suggestion for potential donors to phone the Emory Transplant Center or complete an on-line questionnaire. 

“I knew it’s a pretty big surgery, but I was just like, ‘I have an extra kidney. I’m pretty healthy,’” she says. “And I called my mom and asked her what she thought and she said that if that’s what you feel you’re called to do, then go for it. And I thought, if God wants me to be the donor, then I’m going to match. So much science has gone into it, and to be able to use that science to help Dr. Hertzberg be healthier and live longer, it’s awesome. And I get to be a part of it.”

Christian Larsen, professor of surgery in the Division of Transplantation at Emory and former dean of the Emory School of Medicine, transplanted Hertzberg’s new kidney in March 2022. Larsen and Hertzberg have known each other through their collaborative research, having teamed-up on a project studying the immune system in kidney transplant patients.

“This is not a road I would have chosen for myself,” Hertzberg says. “So I’m trying my hardest to learn the lessons along the way and to keep being positive. I want to dance at my grandchildren’s weddings, and the oldest one is soon to be five years old.”

Chicas believes that her success, her mentors, and her organ donation have proved her favorite quote.

“Mother Teresa said, ‘If you can’t feed 100 people, then feed just one,’” she says. “I’m not a philanthropist. I’m not a billionaire. But I feel like there are certain things that I can do.” 

Emory School of Nursing faculty member Vicki Hertzberg (left) received a gift of life from colleague and research collaborator Roxana Chicas. When Hertzberg needed a new kidney, Chicas was deemed a match.