Sad Demise

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Varsha was the daughter of Shri Hariprasad and Muktagauri Bhatt of Amreli, Gujarat, and was born in Kampala, Uganda. She had six older brothers and was the only daughter. She studied for a Pharmacy degree at Gujarat University LM College in India, trained in London (UK), and then came to graduate school at University of Cincinnati, USA to earn a Pharm.D, where she also met her husband. She began her career as a Pediatric and Neonatal Clinical Pharmacologist and gathered over 30 years of experience in pediatric and neonatal clinical practice, research and education.She retired in 2021 as a Clinical Professor of Pharmacy, Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases at the University of Michigan (UM) and was a key member of a multidisciplinary critical care team at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor. Her clinical services were dedicated to the care of full term and premature newborn infants. She taught and mentored several children of JSGD and Gujarati Society members at the UM. She then joined U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2021 as a Senior Staff Fellow in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology to further new science in pediatric drug development. Varsha was elected a Fellow of two professional societies, and a Board member/peer reviewer for many national and international pediatric scientific journals and published over 100 scientific papers, abstracts and book chapters in medical journals. Outside work, Varsha enjoyed family life, travelling, physical fitness, cooking and singing Hindustani classical and semi-classical music and choreographed many garba dances in her younger days. She graciously supported Manish’s volunteeractivities with Rotary International and JAINA, while raising their two sons.