Raisa Nishat

Raisa Nishat, a second-year pharmacy student, grew up in Queens, N.Y., and earned her undergraduate degree from Stony Brook University. She expected she would attend medical school, but ended up following a different path.

“As I went through my undergraduate journey, I realized medical school was not for me, so I looked at other options, including physician assistant and nursing,” she said. When a friend — Tahsin Imam, also a P2 PharmD student at Binghamton — brought up pharmacy, she immediately thought of putting pills into a bottle.

But instead of brushing the idea off, Nishat did her research and learned that she could work directly with patients and that pharmacy is an evolving field. “I thought it was something I could go after,” she said.

Her parents “were adamant” about her not going away to school again, so Nishat leaned toward attending a pharmacy school closer to home. Then she learned that Binghamton was starting a pharmacy school. “My heart wanted to go to Binghamton,” she said, so she came for an interview. “I was sold on Binghamton after that, she said. “I was halfway sold because Rachael [Perry, director of admissions] was so nice about answering questions and being there, but the faculty was also nice and down to earth. Binghamton was the better choice for me.”

She was able to convince her family that Binghamton was the right fit, so she came to Binghamton for what she called a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “When you can be part of something new (the inaugural class), you get to play a unique role in building and shaping [the school] and I was ready to start from a fresh slate,” she said. “I want to make a mark in the history of Binghamton’s pharmacy program.”

And she’s done her best to make that mark.

“As student dean I’ve been able to do things I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise,” she said, in particular, developing the Big Sib-Little Sib mentoring program for first-year students and the Apothecary Curators Committee.

“I listened to Dean Meredith’s vision and thought about, ‘How do I make this happen?” Nishat said. “For the mentoring program, I drafted up a document with expectations, criteria to be a mentor, how fulfilling it is and what the goals of the program are.”

The Apothecary Curators Committee oversees the items that have been donated to the school and are showcased in the main lobby in glass cases. “Again, it was Dean Meredith’s vision and I worked on the logistics to make it happen,” Nishat said. “The committee now includes P1 and P2 students and there’s no hierarchy to it. We just have roles like head of design, head of inventory, secretary and it’s going really well.’ Items will be rotated every semester, she added, with themes for what is on each shelf of the cases.

Because she was looking to be heavily involved at the school, Nishat jumped are her very first chance at a leadership role – as a student ambassador. “I thought, ‘Ah, yes, this is something I want to do,’” she said. “I love talking to students and advocating for Binghamton. It’s really important for students to ask questions and figure out if we’re the right fit.”

As a P2 student, Nishat is doing her current Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience (IPPE) at Guthrie Corning. She travels there once a week, and even though it’s a bit of a drive, it’s very worth it, she said. “I have a great preceptor and every week is a little bit different,” she said. “We have a rubric of all that we have to do in the curriculum. Last week we were doing chemotherapy observation, watching pharmacists mix chemotherapy drugs. It’s a lot of what we have learned in sterile compounding with Dr. Bohan.”

After completing the rubric, she will choose how to spend the last two weeks of the IPPE. “It’s my choice. If I really like patient counseling, I’ll take the lead in that, or maybe in sterile compounding,” she said. “But the most unique thing about this IPPE site is we do a cardiac rehab. My preceptor is the leader of the cardiac rehab where we have patients who come and learn about the drugs they’re taking and meet others in the same situation. We do lectures on beta blockers, statins, diuretics and several other drugs and I really enjoy that as well.

“I’m happiest when I get to interact and counsel the patients,” Nishat said. “I like when you get to go talk to the patient and make sure they’re taking their medications the right way at the right time.”

Moving forward, Nishat will likely pass the student dean baton to another student (after serving for two years), but has applied for a position with Student National Pharmaceutical Association (SNPhA) as head of its Stroke Prevention Committee. Meanwhile, she’ll remain a student ambassador and pass along responsibility for the Big Sib-Little Sib program and the Apothecary Curators Committee to the new student dean.

Additional titles she will carry into the upcoming academic year include: vice president of the student government at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, social media chair for the Student Society of Health-System Pharmacy and president of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy student chapter.

“I’m totally up for it!” she said.

When she completes her PharmD, Nishat hopes to do a PGY1 residency in the New York City area. “I know that if I want to be a hospital pharmacist, a residency is the way in,” she said. “It’s always about the long-term for me and I think I’ll reach my professional goals in a hospital setting.” She will also look into becoming board certified in cardiology.

But until then, and it might sound silly, she said, she will also continue being a member of a Bollywood dance team.

She wasn’t able to participate as an undergraduate, but one reason beyond pharmacy that she was interested in Binghamton University was so she could be part of Binghamton Masti, a Student Association-chartered Bollywood fusion dance team that preserves the heritage of the people from South Asia. “I haven’t been active this semester, but was before and hope to be again,” she said. “We competed in Adelphi’s Best Dance Crew competition last semester and won first place and it was the highlight of my semester!”