When fourth-year Pharm.D. student Catrina “Nina” Chatman first learned about the role of pharmacists in organ transplant from Nicole Omecene, Pharm.D., during her Solid Organ Transplantation Elective, her connection to the material went beyond the classroom. She thought back to her childhood friend, Elisabeth, who after being on the transplant list for years, lost her battle with cystic fibrosis after sustaining an infection following her lung transplant in 2010.

“I was very young then; I was 19, and being exposed to that, obviously, it’s very heartbreaking,” Chatman said, “but when I think back, it’s also amazing that somebody had that opportunity – her in getting a transplant to help with this condition she’d grown up with and the donor for making an impact on her life and giving the gift of life by choosing to be an organ donor.”

Years later, Chatman, with the help of VCU Health pharmacists, faculty and her peers, has been recognized at the national level for the impact she’s made in organ donation advocacy – an impact with the power to save lives.

This summer, the American Society of Transplantation (AST) recognized Chatman with the AST Transplant Pharmacy Community of Practice Organ Donation Challenge award for Best Overall Project (2025-2026) for the project “Organ Donation Education & Advocacy,” earning the highest overall score in the country among pharmacy students who submitted entries and a grant from Veloxis Pharmaceuticals to sustain advocacy efforts in the years ahead.

“This massive undertaking – to empower our community with knowledge, compassion and action by raising awareness about the life-saving impact of organ donation – has thrived on strong institutional and peer support,” Chatman shared. “This project focused on educating our peers and the community and inspiring individuals to register as donors. Through advocacy, outreach and creative engagement, we aimed to create and seek to sustain a lasting legacy, because every person has the power to make an impact.”

Chatman came to VCU School of Pharmacy in 2023, the next step in a career that has included stints in the military, in labs and in hospitals across several states. When Chatman lost her friend at age 19, she was active-duty military, which at the time affected her eligibility to be an organ donor, but in an effort to honor her friend’s memory, she donated blood and platelets whenever she could.

Over the years, the desire to serve others that had steered Chatman in her military career propelled her in a new direction: healthcare. Following her military career, she started taking classes at the University of Maryland Global Campus while working as a lab assistant at a hospital in southwest Oklahoma. After earning her B.S. in biotechnology in 2021, she joined the hematology team at the same hospital as a medical technologist for two years before moving to Richmond for pharmacy school.

During P2 year, Dr. Omecene’s Solid Organ Transplantation Elective “illuminated the vital role pharmacists play in the transplant ecosystem,” Chatman said. “Through this elective, I learned firsthand about these critical care spaces and had the privilege to meet VCU's Transplant Pharmacy Team, as well as a transplant recipient who shared her story.”

From there, Chatman shadowed Idris Yakubu, Pharm.D., a VCU Health Hume-Lee Transplant Center pharmacist, who inspired her to turn her clinical understanding of transplantation into advocacy, and connected with Fadel Dadabaev, Pharm.D., a PGY-2 Solid Organ Transplant pharmacy resident at VCU Health, who supported Chatman as she began her advocacy and went on to serve as her mentor for the Organ Donation Challenge project.

Chatman and Dadabaev’s project, “Students for Life: Building a Legacy of Hope,” successfully brought together faculty, specialized clinicians, transplant recipients and multiple student organizations to champion Organ Donation Education & Advocacy (ODEA). Guided by the mission slogan, “Be the legacy. Give Life,” this initiative executed seven distinct, in-depth community and campus events, reaching nearly 100 participants. Elements of the project included:

• An interactive organ donation panel drawing over 44 attendees, which featured experts from across disciplines, including transplant nephrologist Irfan Moinuddin, M.D., and clinical transplant pharmacists Aoife Iaria, Pharm.D., and Dr. Yakubu, to discuss the critical, lifelong realities of patient care and medication adherence.
• Partnerships with two pharmacy student organizations:
  • the Student National Pharmaceutical Association (SNPhA), with additional support from its 2025-26 president, now-P4 Valeria Ortiz Gareca, to develop, “Project Keepsake,” to bridge kidney disease awareness with transplantation education.
  • the Christian Pharmacists Fellowship International (CPFI), with additional support from its 2025-26 president, now-P4 Taighlor Meredith, to co-lead an Organ Donor Memorial Walk, where student pharmacists bundled flowers with encouraging quotes and references to scripture to honor donors at the National Donor Memorial in Richmond.
• A specialized tour of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) headquarters in Richmond, where students met with UNOS’ principal biostatistician, Wida Cherikh, Ph.D., to discuss the Organ Procurement & Transplantation Network (OPTN), how OPTN data impacts transplant medication adherence and the critical role specialty pharmacies play in long-term outcomes.

As Chatman enters her fourth block of APPE rotations, she recognizes the importance of sustaining this effort beyond graduation. Chatman is working with SNPhA president, P3 Sevgi Shahbazi, to establish a permanent Organ Transplant Chair within SNPhA to sustain the momentum of the past year.

“My hope is that this role will solidify the project's sustainability, ensuring that the educational tabling, clinical panels, UNOS tours, and memorial walks become annual traditions at VCU,” Chatman said. “Future plans also include driving closer recruitment from the transplant elective curriculum and expanding collaborations with the undergraduate Student Organ Donation Advocates (SODA) chapter.”

As Chatman looks ahead to the next chapter in her own career, she sees a future in hospital pharmacy, whether that’s in hematology-oncology, neurology, transplantation – her top three areas of interest – or the places where those specialties come together.

“Bone marrow transplantation is kind of like that intersection between oncology and transplantation, and I have two rotations in that later this year,” Chatman said. “I’m very excited for those.”

The last few years of pharmacy school have put things in perspective for Chatman, helping her remember to prioritize what’s important in your life, opening her eyes to career paths she’d never considered and encouraging her to look at the bigger picture for each patient, including the preventive care that could help reduce the need for organ transplantation for patients and the care that can help them live longer lives altogether – both of which pharmacists are well equipped to provide.

“For preventable conditions that may result in the need for transplantation down the line, what you do now matters, even from a young age,” Chatman said. “I think about my daughter, who just turned 15, and students her age and how we can educate them early. If we can educate people, that’s going to impact their lives for sure, and it can open doors.

“And for patients waiting for a transplant today, you don’t want a patient to decline while they’re waiting and then no longer be eligible for a transplant. That’s where pharmacists can play a huge role, too, in making sure that patients are adhering to their medications and maintaining the function they still have in their organs. There’s a lot of difference we can make as pharmacists.”