Nurses from the LBJ Hospital’s Dialysis Unit have been conducting outreach to different high schools in the territory to speak about the fight against kidney disease and advocate for kidney health in American Samoa.

The outreach is among the activities scheduled for Nephrology Nurses Week, which kicked off last Sunday and concludes today.

Currently, there is a shortage of nurses and doctors in the territory, and one of the goals of the outreach program is to stir up interest in the younger generation, in an effort to gear them towards careers in the medical field.

Recent figures show that 151 local residents are dialysis patients and the number is expected to increase every year.