Douglas N. Fish, Angela D.M. Kashuba, Jo Ellen Rodgers, and James E. Tisdale have been selected by the College’s Awards Committee to receive the association’s prestigious 2017 Education Award, Therapeutic Frontiers Lecture Award, Clinical Practice Award, and Russell R. Miller Award, respectively. The awards will be presented in Phoenix on Sunday morning, October 8, during the Awards and Recognition Ceremony of the College’s 2017 Annual Meeting.

The Education Award recognizes an ACCP member who has made substantial and outstanding contributions to clinical pharmacy education at either the professional or the postgraduate level. Douglas N. Fish, Pharm.D., FCCP, FCCM, BCPS-AQ ID, is a professor and chair of the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in Aurora, Colorado. In addition, he serves as a clinical specialist in critical care/infectious diseases at the University of Colorado Hospital on the Anschutz Medical Campus. The ACCP Awards Committee noted Fish’s many accomplishments as an educator in both the professional degree program and postgraduate settings. Dr. Robert MacLaren, professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Colorado, wrote in his letter of nomination:

Dr. Fish is well respected by faculty peers, postgraduate trainees, and students for his extraordinary teaching skills. This is evident by the fact that he has received either the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching or the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from the University of Colorado at least eight times, including six consecutive years between 2008 and 2013, in recognition of exceptional teaching and mentorship in and out of the classroom…. He provides learning environments where trainees are challenged to think independently while comforted by the safety of his professional guidance and practical experiences. Dr. Fish is a champion of multiprofessional education and is committed to offering students and trainees a wide variety of rewarding skill-based experiences. His commitment to teaching is unprecedented as he teaches over 100 contact hours annually across all pharmacy classes in a breadth of topic areas that include infectious diseases and antimicrobials, critical care, and pharmacokinetics; coordinates two to three courses annually; teaches in the Pharmaceutical Outcomes Graduate Program; mentors seminar students; mentors research students in the Honors Program; serves as a faculty advisor for student organizations; and co-directs and/or co-coordinates the specialty residencies in Infectious Diseases (since 2001) and Critical Care (since 1996), and the fellowship program in Critical Care.

At the time of his nomination, Fish had published more than 70 peer-reviewed research papers, written or cowritten 40 book chapters, and presented his research regularly at professional and scientific meetings throughout the world. He has provided extensive professional service, including as president of the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists, chair of the ACCP Critical Care PRN, chair of the ACCP Nominations Committee, member or chair of numerous committees of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, and member of several journal editorial boards. He was elected as a fellow of the American College of Critical Care Medicine in 2000 and as an ACCP Fellow in 2006.

The ACCP Therapeutic Frontiers Lecture Award recognizes an individual, including ACCP member and nonmember nominees, who has made outstanding contributions to pharmacotherapeutics in his or her field. Among the criteria for this award is the broad acknowledgment that the recipient is currently considered at the leading edge of research in the field. Angela D.M. Kashuba, Pharm.D., DABCP, is the John A. and Deborah S. McNeill Jr. Distinguished Professor in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). She is chair of the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy and director of the UNC Center for AIDS Research Clinical Pharmacology and Analytical Chemistry Core. She is also an adjunct professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the UNC School of Medicine. She has distinguished herself as a nationally and internationally recognized researcher who oversees a multidisciplinary and translational research program focused on optimizing antiretroviral pharmacology in HIV treatment, prevention, and cure. Kashuba is recognized for her research assessing the influence of antiretroviral pharmacology in mucosal tissue on HIV transmission and the pharmacokinetics of antiretrovirals in nursing mothers and infants. Many of the advances in this field can be attributed to her achievements. Dr. Kim Brouwer, William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor and associate dean for research and graduate education in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, wrote in her letter of support:

Dr. Kashuba’s research accomplishments are impressive. During the past 18 years as a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Eshelman School of Pharmacy, she has published more than 195 peer-reviewed manuscripts, 176 scientific abstracts, and 17 book chapters…. Furthermore, she has multiple publications receiving recognition from Faculty of 1000 (top 2% of published articles in biology and medicine) and she has received the American Medical Writers Association Award…. She also received the 2009 Leon I. Goldberg Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and the UNC Department of Infectious Disease Pam Herriot Award for Outstanding Service. To support her work in antiretroviral pharmacology in mucosal tissue, Dr. Kashuba has received multiple grant awards as principal investigator from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center…. She has mentored more than 50 undergraduate and professional students, in addition to doctoral and postdoctoral clinical and research trainees. Her significant contributions in this capacity are reflected by the numerous fellowships and awards that her trainees have received. Her involvement in the training of international visiting scientists is particularly noteworthy…. Dr. Kashuba has served as an ad hoc reviewer for NIH study sections as well as a member of various NIH planning/working groups and advisory committees, has chaired many international HIV workshops, and is involved actively in numerous professional organizations.

At the time of her nomination, Kashuba had delivered more than 155 invited presentations, including at national conferences, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She has also published her work in some of the most highly regarded journals in the field, serving as a coauthor on papers in Annals of Internal Medicine and Lancet and as primary or senior author on manuscripts in AIDS, Journal of Infectious Diseases, Antiretroviral Therapy, Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Clinical Pharmacokinetics, and Drug Metabolism and Disposition, among others. Kashuba also serves as an active reviewer for numerous journals, including Nature, Lancet, Journal of Infectious Diseases, Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, and Clinical Infectious Diseases. The Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists recognized her as Young Investigator of the Year in 2001. She is board certified by the American Board of Clinical Pharmacology and serves as a member of the Advisory Committee on Research on Women’s Health for the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health. Kashuba’s Therapeutic Frontiers Lecture, titled “The Evolution of Precision Medicine in HIV Infection,” will be delivered at the ACCP Awards and Recognition Ceremony at 10:20 a.m. on Sunday, October 8, in Phoenix.

The ACCP Clinical Practice Award is given to a College member who has made substantial and outstanding contributions to clinical pharmacy practice. The criteria considered in identifying potential candidates include exceptional leadership in developing innovative clinical pharmacy services and sustained excellence in providing them. Jo Ellen Rodgers, Pharm.D., FCCP, FHFSA, BCPS-AQ Cardiology, is a clinical associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) Eshelman School of Pharmacy. She currently serves as an associate director of clinical fellowship programs and maintains an active clinical practice with UNC Health Care. She cares for patients at the UNC heart and vascular center in both the heart failure and cardio-oncology clinics. In addition, she provides periodic coverage for the inpatient cardiomyopathy and cardiac transplant service. Dr. Shannon Finks, professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Tennessee College of Pharmacy, highlighted many of Rodgers’s accomplishments in her letter of nomination:

For the past 14 years, Dr. Rodgers has maintained a clinical practice with the Cardiomyopathy and Cardiac Transplantation service at the University of North Carolina (UNC)…. I have seen the impact that her clinical practice and field expertise have offered our national cardiology peers…. On behalf of UNC Health Care and Carolinas Center for Medical Excellence, she and a physician colleague served as co­editors for the first edition of a patient education kit for heart failure patients, “Learning to Live with Heart Failure.” This kit received several national awards including the Platinum MarCom Award, the National Health Information Merit Award, and the Hermes Platinum Award in Integrative Marketing Materials. She has updated the patient education booklet several times and just published the fourth edition…. She has been invited to provide over 100 continuing education programs reaching pharmacists, physicians, and other health care professionals locally, nationally, and internationally. Many of these programs have focused on the application of evidence-based medicine in the management of cardiovascular diseases, primarily chronic and acute decompensated heart failure.

Dr. Patricia Chang, director of the heart failure and transplant program at UNC, added in her letter of support:

In the care of patients, Jo Ellen is remarkably thoughtful and comprehensive, with the perfect balance of assertiveness and humility. Patients truly appreciate and benefit from the time she spends with them. One patient remains so thankful that he continues to bake her cakes on an annual basis when he visits me in my transplant clinic, years after she was last clinically involved with his care. She has been a formidable advocate of patient education, having led several patient education initiatives…. Dr. Rodgers teaches not only the patients and the various trainees (pharmacy, medical, nursing), but also her non-pharmacy faculty colleagues like me. Her knowledge of the current state of the art is extensive. She has become well recognized across the country as she has been asked to participate in many important committees of national professional societies…. She has been an invited speaker at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions and Heart Failure Society of America and she serves on the guidelines committee of the Heart Failure Society of America. In the last year, she received recognition as a fellow of both these organizations.

At the time of her nomination, Rodgers had written or cowritten more than 45 peer-reviewed papers and 18 book chapters. She serves as peer reviewer for American Journal of Cardiology, American Journal of Cardiovascular Drugs, Annals of Pharmacotherapy, Chest, Heart & Lung, Journal of Cardiac Failure, and Pharmacotherapy. She has been a highly engaged leader within ACCP, serving as a member of numerous committees, as chair of the Cardiology PRN, and as a member of the ACCP Board of Regents. Rodgers, a past chair of the Board of Pharmacy Specialties Specialty Council, has received numerous professional awards and honors and was recognized as an ACCP Fellow in 2009.

Russell R. Miller was the founding editor of the College’s journal, Pharmacotherapy. The Russell R. Miller Award is presented in recognition of substantial contributions to the literature of clinical pharmacy, thereby advancing both clinical pharmacy practice and rational pharmacotherapy. James E. Tisdale, Pharm.D., FCCP, FAPhA, FNAP, FAHA, BCPS, is a professor in the college of pharmacy at Purdue University and an adjunct professor in the school of medicine at Indiana University in Indianapolis, Indiana. At the time of his nomination, Tisdale had published 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts, serving as first author on more than 50 of them. He has also published more than 60 abstracts, 21 book chapters, and 3 books. Dr. Jo Ellen Rodgers noted Tisdale’s important contributions to the literature in her letter of nomination:

Dr. Tisdale has made substantial contributions to the literature in the form of both a single, noteworthy contribution as well as sustained contributions over time in the field of cardiovascular pharmacotherapy with an emphasis on the prevention and optimal management of arrhythmias. Given his successful translational research program and substantial impact on the arrhythmia literature, he is recognized as a national and international expert by colleagues in pharmacy and medicine…. His primary focus has involved mechanisms, risk factors, and management of drug-induced arrhythmias, and drug therapy for prevention and treatment of atrial fibrillation…. The translational approach of Dr. Tisdale’s research exemplifies a model that successfully bridges scientific knowledge gained at the benchtop and bedside clinical practice. It has ranged from animal experiments to clinical investigations in normal, healthy volunteers and diseased patients to implementation of systems in the clinical setting. Benchtop experiments have involved a variety of animal models including ex vivo perfusion studies with AV-ablated isolated rabbit hearts, paced guinea pig hearts, and anesthetized dogs. He has utilized these models to conduct a series of studies to assess the influence of various hormones on ventricular action potential duration and drug-induced torsades de pointes. Additional studies have determined the influence of hemodynamic and neurohormonal predictors on atrial fibrillation as well as the consequences of developing atrial fibrillation. He has also assessed the impact of various antiarrhythmic agents on atrial electrophysiological parameters and electrocardiographic measurements…. In the clinical setting, Dr. Tisdale conducted a prospective, observational study to assess the prevalence of QT interval prolongation in patients admitted to cardiac care units in a large urban academic medical center. He utilized these study findings to develop and validate a risk score to predict QT interval prolongation in hospitalized patients. Subsequently, he utilized this same risk score to evaluate the effectiveness of a clinical decision support system to reduce the risk of QT interval prolongation in hospitalized patients.

Tisdale served on the guideline committee of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons on the prophylaxis and management of atrial fibrillation associated with general thoracic surgery. In addition, he was a member of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery guideline committee for preventing and managing perioperative atrial fibrillation and flutter for thoracic surgical procedures. He has published numerous review articles that provide basic overviews of the use of antiarrhythmic therapies for the everyday clinician and has written chapters on arrhythmias in many editions of various textbooks, including ACCP’s Pharmacotherapy Self-Assessment Program, Pharmacotherapy: Principles & Practice, Fundamentals of Geriatric Pharmacotherapy, and ACCP’s Critical Care Pharmacotherapy. He serves as a scientific editor for Pharmacotherapy and as an associate editor for the Canadian Journal of Hospital Pharmacy. Tisdale has served as a member or chair of numerous ACCP committees as well as ACCP regent and ACCP president. He has received numerous professional honors, including the New Investigator Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy and recognition as a Fellow of ACCP, the American Heart Association, the American Pharmacists Association, and the National Academies of Practice.