The License to Give Trust Fund Commission has awarded a Fast Track Grant to The Mission Healthcare Foundation, a non-profit headquartered in Asheville.

“Its project proposal meets the Commission’s criteria to expand organ, eye and tissue donation and encourage thoughtful end-of-life decisions, including organ and tissue donation as a significant consideration in this process of advance care planning,” said Commission Chairman Ken Burkel.

The ultimate goal of the Mission Healthcare Foundation is to increase Actionable Donor Designations in Western North Carolina “through the development of an institutional ethos that increases the number of registered hospital employees that ultimately will benefit and save the lives of many North Carolinians as a whole,” Burkel said.

The Seventh Day Adventist Thrift Store, or as it is aptly named “The Thrift Store,” recently moved locations across West Palmer Street in Franklin. With the move, The Thrift Store also expanded its operations.

“We are a community service center. The money that we make in the thrift shop goes back into the community,” said store manager Kay Durandetta. “We help with rent, electric, water, prescriptions, clothing and we now have a food bank.” She said that there was not enough space at the original location, and that the amount of people they helped, and items for sale, were piling up.

MedWest Health System welcomes Dr. Laura Fornos Verde, who will join Dr. Earl Haddock at Sylva Cardiology at MedWest-Harris. Dr. Verde will begin seeing patients in September.

Verde is currently completing a fellowship in cardiology at Pitt County Memorial Hospital with the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, where she served as chief resident. Dr. Verde received her medical degree from Faculdade de Ciencias Medicas de Santos, Santos, SP, Brazil. She completed internal medicine residencies at Hospital Prof. Edmundo Vasoncelos, Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil and Pitt County Memorial Hospital. Dr. Verde is a member of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Cardiology.

Dr. Verde and her fiancé Steven Foreman, an intensive care unit nurse and nurse educator, will relocate to Western North Carolina from Greenville, NC this summer.

Debra L. P. Cowan, Pharm. D., BS. Pharm., has been notified that the ASHP FASHP Recognition Committee, has approved her as a Fellow of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

“The granting of fellowship reflects the high standards of practice excellence that Debra has demonstrated, and with it comes the hope that she will continue to share and maintain these ideals throughout her professional career,” as stated by Henri Manasse, CEO of ASHSP.

ASHP is committed to assisting Fellows in any way that it can in meeting the objectives of the Society.