Previous Faculty Spotlights

Faculty Spotlight

Amy Pasternak earned her PharmD from the Raabe College of Pharmacy at Ohio Northern University. She completed a PGY1 Pharmacy Practice Residency at Cleveland Clinic Hillcrest Hospital, a PGY2 residency in Clinical Pharmacogenetics at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and the Clinical Pharmacy and Translational Science Fellowship at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the UMCOP and a clinical pharmacist in pharmacogenetics at Michigan Medicine.

Her clinical practice is focused on the implementation of pharmacogenetics into the Michigan Medicine medical record and she works closely with the Department of Pharmacy, University of Michigan Precision Health Initiative, and other genetics specialists to advance these efforts. Examples of implemented or ongoing projects include the deployment of advisory alerts to identify high-risk prescriptions based on a genetic result, monitoring of duplicate pharmacogenetic testing to decrease testing costs, and establishing institutional guidance for medications with recommendations for pharmacogenetic testing. She is also working to establish a pharmacogenetics clinic to increase accessibility of result interpretation for patients and providers.

Faculty Spotlight

Michael Smith earned his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry with a Bioscience Option and his Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Pittsburgh. He completed his PGY1 Pharmacy Residency and PGY2 Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC. He is a Clinical Associate Professor at the UMCOP and a clinical pharmacist specialist in Pain and Palliative Care at Michigan Medicine and is the Residency Program Director for the PGY2 Pain Management and Palliative Care Pharmacy Residency. His clinical practice includes inpatient and outpatient palliative care and outpatient chronic pain.

Michael's research interests focus on the safe use of symptom management medications in vulnerable patients, namely analgesics for patients with and who survive cancer. His methodological interests lie within mixed methods and large datasets. His ultimate goal is to support providers who care for vulnerable patients with real time support, emulating that of his clinical practice.

Faculty Spotlight

Dr. Michael Dorsch joined the University of Michigan in 2005 as a Clinical Pharmacist Specialist in Cardiology. Dr. Dorsch received his PharmD from Ohio Northern University and completed a PGY1 pharmacy practice residency at Riverside Methodist Hospital, in Columbus, Ohio, as well as a PGY2 cardiology specialty residency at University of North Carolina Hospitals, in Chapel Hill. He earned a Master of Science in clinical research design and statistical analysis from the University of Michigan School of Public Health and completed an institutional K30 award from the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research. In 2012, Dr. Dorsch transitioned to College of Pharmacy faculty as Clinical Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2014. After several externally funded research grants, he moved to the tenure track in 2018 as an Assistant Professor.

Dr. Dorsch is a clinical researcher who studies the effects of health information technology (IT) on health outcomes in patients with cardiovascular disease. He studies the development, implementation and outcomes associated with patient- and provider-centered clinical decision support (CDS). Specifically, providing the right health information to the right individual at the right time. Provider-centered CDS uses electronic health record (EHR) or health information exchange infrastructure to facilitate providers prescribing the most appropriate medications. Patient-centered CDS uses mobile or web applications to effortlessly assist in monitoring health status, promote health behavior modifications, and/or provide actionable health information. Dr. Dorsch’s research has been funded by the American Heart Association (AHA), National Institutes of Health, and Agency for Health Research and Quality. He is also a Board Certified Cardiology Pharmacy Specialist and named a Fellow of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) and AHA. Most recently, he has received the 2016 Professional Practice Award from the Michigan Society of Health-System Pharmacists and the 2019 Mentoring Award from the ACCP Cardiology Practice and Research Network.

Faculty Spotlight

Emily Ashjian earned her Bachelor of Science in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of Washington and her Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy with highest honors and highest distinction. She completed her PGY1 Pharmacy Residency and PGY2 Ambulatory Care Pharmacy Residency at the University of Michigan, serving as Chief Resident both years. Dr. Ashjian is Board Certified in Pharmacotherapy and Ambulatory Care Pharmacy and is a Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist.

Emily provides care for patients in internal medicine at Briarwood Medical Group, a Michigan Medicine patient centered medical home, and with the Multidisciplinary Chronic Kidney Disease team at Michigan Medicine. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic she has transitioned her clinical practice from in person visits to a telehealth model. She has continued to precept learners ranging from P2 IPPE students to PGY2 Ambulatory Care residents virtually using a synchronous format and will be introducing this year’s class of third year pharmacy students to telehealth in the ambulatory care environment as she coordinates the conversion of Pharmacy Practice Skills III to a virtual, synchronous format this fall. Emily is passionate about pharmacy residency training, serving as the PGY2 Ambulatory Care Residency Program Coordinator and co-coordinator of the Michigan Medicine Residency Teaching Certificate Program.

Emily’s research interests and recent publications focus on the impact of innovative clinical pharmacy services on patient outcomes, cardiovascular risk reduction, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease. She also has interests in experiential education and the scholarship of teaching and learning. She aims to empower patients to implement evidence-based medication changes and recommendations made for their chronic disease states in both primary care and specialty settings, and envisions a role for interprofessional student teams to provide education and support, a project she is currently pursuing through her participation in the 2020 University of Michigan Interprofessional Leadership Fellows Program.

Faculty Spotlight

Dr. Jasmine Luzum (formerly Talameh), PharmD, PhD, BCPS joined the Department of Clinical Pharmacy in July 2016. She received her PharmD summa cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh in 2008 and her PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Eshelman School of Pharmacy in 2013. She completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Ohio State University College of Medicine and Center for Pharmacogenomics in 2016. She became a Board-Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist by the Board of Pharmacy Specialties in 2015 and an Applied Pharmacologist by the American Board of Clinical Pharmacology in 2015.

Dr. Luzum runs a clinical and translational research lab focused on cardiovascular precision medicine. You can check out her lab website here. The long-term goal of Dr. Luzum’s research is to improve cardiovascular medication outcomes with precision medicine. She is especially interested in differences in cardiovascular drug response by race and genomics. Her lab uses a variety of research approaches, including genetics/genomics, electronic health records, and bioinformatics. Her research has been funded by the most prestigious sponsors (e.g., NIH, American Heart Association, and American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education), published in top journals (e.g., Cell Metabolism, Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Journal of the American Heart Association), and presented at major conferences (e.g., American College of Cardiology Scientific Sessions and the NIH Pharmacogenomics Research Network).

Faculty Spotlight

Michael Kenes received his Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Illinois Chicago and completed his Pharmacy Practice Residency at the Cleveland Clinic and his Critical Care Pharmacy Residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Kenes has also served as a Clinical Pharmacy Specialist in the medical intensive care unit at Wake Forest Baptist Health prior to joining our College. His clinical practice site is the critical care medicine unit at Michigan Medicine.

Since his start date in February of this year, he has led clinical pharmacy services in the newly opened (and since closed!) 50-bed RICU or COVID ICU at Michigan Medicine. He helped to streamline and standardized care for these challenging patients and educate the many volunteer providers that rotated through the unit. He has led or assisted in several ongoing research projects including:

• Comparing the effect of propofol on development of hypertriglyceridemia in patients with COVID vs. non-COVID associated ARDS
• Examining the effect of tracheostomy on sedation reduction in mechanically ventilated COVID ICU patients
• Characterizing the prevalence and risk factors for delirium in COVID ICU patients
• Utilization of neuromuscular blockade in COVID vs. non-COVID associated ARDS

Michael looks forward to returning to the critical care medicine unit to further establish his practice and educate our student and resident learners.