In 2020, locked down in her parents’ Minnesota home due to COVID, Daniella Del Toro had an epiphany. She was taking classes online as a pre-pharmacy biological sciences major at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif. But for her PharmD, she realized she wanted to study at a major research university in a larger city with access to renowned hospitals.
So Del Toro moved to Los Angeles in August 2021 to study at the USC Mann School, where she also wanted to take part in the university’s noted community outreach programs.
“There were so many organizations, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to be involved in,” she recalls. So Del Toro took as many opportunities as she could to make as much of a difference as possible—from helping the underserved to interning for three years at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
What made her Mann School experience so special was being able to create new opportunities, she says. “If you have an idea, with the guidance of USC faculty, you can really put it into practice.”
As part of the Medical and Pharmacy Student Collaboration (MAPSC), Del Toro helped pilot a street medicine clinic pairing pharmacy students with physicians, nurse practitioners and social workers. “The most important thing was always to leave the patient with a sense of hope,” she says.
That experience led her to Homeboy Industries, where she led health education workshops for formerly incarcerated individuals; to an addiction medicine rotation aiding incarcerated patients at Los Angeles General Medical Center; and to co-leading a peer education series on street medicine. Her preceptors at L.A. General—Mann Assistant Professor David Dadiomov and pharmacy resident Courtney Saeteurn—helped her hone the skills needed to meet patients where they are.
Meanwhile, as a Latino Alumni Association scholar, she dreamed of encouraging more students from underrepresented backgrounds to enter the pharmacy field. Already involved in the Mann School’s outreach program Southern California Outreach for Pharmacy Education (SCOPE), she and her peers wanted to create something bigger.
The result was the SCOPE Saturday Academy, a six-week program introducing underrepresented high schoolers to careers in healthcare professions, which Del Toro helped lead.
“She’s someone who can really make things happen,” says Melissa Durham, associate professor of clinical pharmacy and SCOPE faculty advisor. “She has been a tremendous asset to our program.”
Del Toro traces her passion for pharmacy back to elementary school, when she accompanied her mother to chemotherapy sessions for colon cancer. Her mom recovered, but Del Toro never forgot the dual nature of the treatment—both healing and harsh.
Later, as a middle school athlete, Del Toro tore her anterior cruciate ligament and was forced to rely on pain medication. Long interested in science and numbers, she began seeing pharmacy as a way to combine analytical skills with her desire to enhance health.
So Del Toro’s career path is as personal as it is professional—especially when tragedy struck her family. During her second year of pharmacy school, her father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He passed away during her third year in the program.
The loss brought her pharmacy internship at Cedars-Sinai into even sharper focus. “I have a lot of empathy for patients and their families who are going through a cancer diagnosis,” Del Toro says. “I understand the uncertainty about how medications are going to work and what other options there are.”
Del Toro will next move to the Bay Area to start a PGY-1 acute care pharmacy residency at Stanford Health Care, where she hopes to spend her second year focusing on oncology. She noticed when her father was ill that his pharmacists weren’t particularly communicative. In her rotations at USC and her internship at Cedars-Sinai, she notes, she’s seen what a difference an open, communicative pharmacist can make in oncology care.
“That’s part of why I’ve worked so hard throughout pharmacy school to be involved in different areas,” Del Toro says, “because I want a position where I’m really involved in the patient’s care.”