Kevin Forrester is an associate professor of clinical pharmacy at USC Mann. As part of the specialized cardiothoracic surgery team at Keck Hospital of USC, he develops, manages and monitors drug therapy for heart and lung transplant patients.
He grew up in Jamaica, where his mother worked as a pharmacist at a major university hospital. His father—also a pharmacist—ran a small rural clinic where healthcare was scarce and he often had to compound a variety of drug concoctions. This early exposure to pharmacy left Forrester comfortable at the frontier of transplantation pharmacology—a complicated field where managing more than a dozen medications for each patient is the norm.
As part of the transplant team, he massages protocols and drug therapy techniques to find the best approach for each patient while also managing patient expectations.
A dedicated teacher, Forrester’s philosophy is to give back to all the mentors, including his parents, who greatly influenced him by doing the same for others. He does this daily in the transplant unit where he teaches pharmacy students as well as residents.