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Austin "Fletch" Fletcher Memorial Fund
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 Recently, a member of The University of Toledo family, Austin “Fletch” Fletcher, was tragically taken from us. During his time in the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and as a former UToledo Hockey player, Fletch made many connections. He was well liked by all of his peers, faculty, and teammates; and, will be greatly missed.
Fletch graduated from The University of Toledo with his Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2019 and had matriculated to the Doctor of Pharmacy program. He was a hard worker and had begun his final year of the program.
To ensure Austin's legacy is carried on, the Austin Fletcher Scholarship Fund has been created. Gifts to this fund will provide students within the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences with scholarship assistance. Click here to donate.
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Department of Defense Grant Funded
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 The University of Toledo College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Department of Defense grant "Development of Novel Inducers of Nonapoptotic Cell Death to Target TNBC” is funded under the Breakthrough Level II Award Mechanism. The total funded amount is $1.47 million for 3 years. The grant was among the top 5 percent DOD funds nationwide.
Associate Professor, Amit Tiwari, Ph.D. serves as Pharmaceutical Inspectorate and the co-inspectorates for complementary areas are:
- College of Medicine: Dr. Dayanidhi Raman, Dr. William Gunning III, and Dr. Sadik Khuder
- College of Engineering: Dr. Yuan Tang
This funding was possible due to hard work from Dr. Tiwari’s team, backend work from Holly Helminski, support from Dean Pollack, and encouragement from other UToledo colleges.
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UToledo Alums Installed as OPA Trustee and OPA
President-Elect
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The Ohio Pharmacists Association (OPA) announced at their 142nd Annual Conference in August that UToledo alumni, Joel Levitan, R.Ph. of Toledo, Ohio, was installed as President-Elect. Levitan is a 1969 graduate of the College of Pharmacy where he currently serves on the Pharmacy Alumni Board. He has practiced community pharmacy in Toledo for 51 years. He has served in many community leadership roles and is a past recipient of OPA's Bowl of Hygeia Award for service to his community, and a runner up for the Jefferson Award in Toledo.
OPA also announced that UToledo alumni, Dan Krinsky, R.Ph., MS of Stow, Ohio, was installed as a Trustee on the OPA Board of Trustees representing District 11. Krinsky is the owner and founder of EduCare4U, LLC and co-owner and co-founder of PGx101, LLC. He is also a member of OPA's Legal and Regulatory, Pharmacy Economics, and Practice Advancement and Innovation Committees. In addition, he serves on OPA's Ad Hoc Committee for Workforce Issues.
We are proud to have UToledo CPPS representation in OPA!
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ACS Chemical Neuroscience Journal Cover
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Dr. Isaac Schiefer, director of the Center for Drug Design and Development (CD3) and associate director of the Shimadzu Laboratory for Pharmaceutical Research Excellence, recently published a manuscript entitled Combining Neurobehavioral Analysis and In Vivo Photoaffinity Labeling to Understand Protein Targets of Methamphetamine in Casper Zebrafish (10.1021/acschemneuro.0c00416). The cover image for this manuscript, taken by Alexander Wisner, was selected as a supplementary cover for ACS Chemical Neuroscience.
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Meet Your Alumni Affiliate Board Members
- Noor Hassan
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 Dr. Noor Hassan, the current alumni affiliate secretary, earned her PharmD at the University of Toledo in 2019. She recently completed a PGY-1 residency at Mercy Health St. Charles Hospital in Oregon, OH. Currently, Dr. Hassan works as a Per Diem Pharmacist at Mercy Health St. Charles Hospital and is in the process of obtaining a position as a Clinical Pharmacist in the Toledo area. Her primary interests in pharmacy include psychiatry and infectious disease, but she loves learning about everything. Her passions include working with other healthcare professionals to provide excellent patient care and serving the community. Dr. Hassan hopes to become a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist within the next few months.
Some of her interests outside of pharmacy include traveling, exploring coffee shops, and roller skating. Dr. Hassan hopes that the alumni affiliate can establish a sense of mentorship and serve as a resource for current students.
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UToledo SSHP Chapter Gains ASHP National Recognition
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Student Society of Health-System Pharmacists (SSHP) is the student chapter of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP). ASHP is the largest pharmacy organization in the nation and represents both hospital and health-system pharmacy. Each state also has a chapter and in Ohio, it is the Ohio Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
The UToledo SSHP chapter gained ASHP national recognition for this past year. In order for a SSHP chapter to gain ASHP national recognition, the chapter needs to meet several requirements each academic year. These requirements include holding specific events, such as hosting health-system speakers at our meetings. Other requirements include partnering with the state affiliate chapter on at least one project per year and to hold an event on well-being and resilience. The student executive board plans these events and ensures the implementation on them in order to meet the national requirements.
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The Health Professions Programs on the UToledo Health Science Campus in partnership with The President’s Committee on African American Recruitment, Retention and Scholarship Support (PCARS) are hosting a virtual reception for first year under-represented minority health professions students. This annual event takes place in the fall semester to offer support and networking opportunities to incoming URM health profession students.
A key part of the event is a student panel discussion where experienced students from each discipline provide wisdom and insight on being successful in their respective programs. This virtual event will be held on Friday, September 25 from 6:00 – 7:30 PM. For more information, contact Dr. Monica Holiday-Goodman at Monica.Holiday-Goodman@utoledo.edu.
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Student Spotlight - Hala Nuseirat, President of SNPhA
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 This month we are highlighting Hala Nuseirat, president of SNPhA.
Hala Nuseirat is a P3 in the PharmD program, she has also completed her BSPS degree in Pharmacy Administration. After completing her first year of pharmacy administration courses, she decided she wanted to pursue her PharmD because of her interest in the clinical aspect of pharmacy. Hala wants to pursue a residency after graduation. Hala’s future goals include: helping inspire a future generation of pharmacy students to change the world the best they can, helping her community as much as possible, and becoming a driving force in the future of pharmacy.
Hala has become a leader during her education at UToledo. In the summer she was elected as the president of SNPhA. SNPhA stands for Student National Pharmaceutical Association. SNPhA is an organization dedicated to serving the underserved. They are one of the most diverse pharmacy organizations on campus. They are an eduation service association of pharmacy students who are concerned about the profession of pharmacy, healthcare issues, and the poor minority respresentation in those areas. The purpose of SNPhA is to plan, organize, coordinate, and execute programs geared toward the improvement of the health, education, and social environment of minority communities.
Hala’s main goals as president of SNPhA are to:
- Bring pharmacy students together
- Have dialogue on the role of pharmacists/student pharmacists in diverse healthcare settings
- Continue the legacy of making a positive impact on the local community
- Translating patient care initiatives to an online COVID-friendly platform
SNPhA also provides networking opportunities and leadership development. Members of SNPhA are referred to as SNPhAM (SNPhA Family) because being involved in the organization feels like being part of a family. Some notable past events include: free health screenings and Salem Lutheran Church, tabling at the Great American Stakeout, educating refugee children along with Students Organize for Syra, the AIDS Gala, and many more. If you are interested in learning more about SNPhA, please reach out to Hala Nuseirat at hala.nuseirat@utoledo.edu.
Hala understands that pharmacy is an ever-changing field and wants to be a part of that process and make positive impacts with those she meets along the way.
To nominate a student, alumni, or faculty member for a spotlight, please email Kristen Gartland.
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Faculty Spotlight - Dr. Anthony Pattin
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 For this month’s Faculty Spotlight, we will be focusing on Anthony Pattin, Pharm.D. Dr. Pattin has been with UToledo since 2015 and is an assistant professor. He is also an alum of the UToledo PharmD program and completed his PGY-1 community residency with UToledo and Kroger Pharmacy. Dr. Pattin has also consummated his ASHP Accredited Community Pharmacy Residency.
Dr. Pattin lists his biggest professional accomplishment being that he was selected to participate in a training program sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to improve his skills in writing and grantsmanship.
He has also been instrumental in helping students to improve their scores on the Multi-State Pharmacy Jurisprudence Exam (MJPE). The UToledo CPPS graduating class of 2019 out-scored the state and nation on the MJPE as well as the North American Pharmacy Licensure Exam (NAPLEX). 100% of UToledo graduates passed the MJPE on their first attempt, compared to 92.3% of graduates from other Ohio pharmacy schools and 85.58% nationally. UToledo was the only school in the country to have 100% of its graduates pass the MPJE exam on the first attempt.
As a professor of Pharmacy Jurisprudence and Ethics, Dr. Pattin says that one of the keys is “finding balance between learning activities and lecture time.” Additionally, he states that “students need adequate time to prepare for active learning sessions outside of class time.” He also notes allowing students to take small exams in self-selected groups as a factor in their success.
“I am proud of the students. They did the work. My goal is not only to create a course where students learn the basics of pharmacy law, I want them to be prepared to read and learn the law on their own in the future. It is not possible to cover all the material they need to know in my 1 credit hour course and laws and rules can change rapidly in the environment of COVID and the opioid crisis. It is important students develop the skill of reading and interpreting the language themselves.” – Dr. Pattin.
Moreover, Dr. Pattin is overjoyed with the success of the 2019 graduating class and very proud of the front-page Toledo Blade newspaper article which discussed their success. The digital version is available here.
Outside of his professional station, Dr. Pattin plays cello and guitar and enjoys spending time with his family, including his wife Carla Pattin, Ph.D. (lecturer in the UToledo Honors College) and his 2-year-old daughter, MacKenzie.
To nominate a student, alumni, or faculty member for a spotlight, please email Kristen Gartland.
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 My favorite part about being a development officer is the people I encounter. I love meeting new people, getting to know them, finding out what makes them happy, and learning what motivates them to support an organization like the University of Toledo. It’s the “what makes people happy” part that gets me out of bed every morning.
I have learned in my many years of relationship management, even when people are low, talking about a good memory or a good experience changes their demeanor in the best of ways. Although this isn’t news to you, today’s social climate generally isn’t one that I would categorize as happy. There is unrest and hurt in many different communities. This is not the first time in our lives that we have seen this kind of unrest, but I’m hopeful that the impending change that is occurring will move the needle forward to a better normal. My mind has been on the “Notorious RBG” and all of the work that she has done, especially for women. As a mother with a daughter, I am extremely grateful for her lifelong service centered on women’s rights and equality for ALL people.
This week I had a wonderful conversation with a donor, talking about our daughters and the current social climate. We reflected on her student scholarship, centered on diversity and inclusion, which she and her family started all in an effort to move students forward into higher education at the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Her family’s generosity to assist students in need, as well as fostering a more diverse student body, is a way that her family and friends feel that they can move the needle towards creating a better normal and a brighter future. Generally, being philanthropic doesn’t necessarily give the donor a brighter future, but I’ve seen firsthand how it does for the recipient. Isn’t that what we all want? A brighter future for our sons and daughters, and for their sons and daughters? Creating a giving environment is what I strive for personally and professionally. Not just of treasure, but of time and talent as well. Meeting with those “notorious” changemakers is how I know there is a brighter future to come, and that definitely makes me happy.
Susan
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For any questions or comments please contact Kristen Gartland.
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Dear colleagues and friends,
