Academic demands, financial insecurity and personal well-being, as a second-year pharmacy student at Xavier University of Louisiana, I face the challenges of balancing these needs. Still, my journey has been shaped by resilience, & I am inspired by Dr. Sami Shafiq-Barker’s commitment to her profession & community. I aim to honor her legacy by supporting future pharmacy students, particularly those from backgrounds like mine. As a first-generation Haitian immigrant from Boston, MA, I’ve been instilled with values of honoring where you’ve come from, striving for success & looking out for my people. My path to pharmacy school has not been easy. In my first year, I struggled with overwhelming expectations, which led to depression and imposter syndrome. My mental health was so low, it came to the point I fell into thinking I have no future. Thankfully, the support of my family, classmates & mentors helped me overcome these challenges & reinforced the importance of community. Looking ahead, I aspire to open up my own practice. A place of healing that provides accessible care to all underserved communities, from cultural differences to physical disabilities. I also want to mentor students facing similar struggles, sharing resources & guidance. I currently use my social media page to document my PharmD journey, foster a supportive community, & share scholarships, opportunities, & motivation. Passionate about helping others, I will continue to move with intention, just as Dr. Shafiq-Barker did. Through perseverance, community, & giving back, I am committed to ensuring her legacy endures.

Time–it catches up with all of us. You never know how much of it you may have. The more you have the better, but one cannot say the same for its sister, Age. With age comes more responsibility, experience and hopefully wisdom, but it also comes with increased susceptibility to disease, fatigue, and overall health deterioration. During my senior year of high school, my maternal grandparents moved out of their old home and into mine. This was temporary until my aunt had her home prepared for them to permanently stay in. My grandmother is a prime example of age equating to health deterioration. She can no longer move around by herself, had reversible dementia, and ultimately struck fear in all of our hearts. During her time with us, I paid attention to everything that came with providing for her. As a first generation immigrant, I’m not new to having to play translator. Before I would step in, I could hear the frustrating tones on both ends of a call trying to handle my grandmother’s medication. One end was filled with disdain, hating that they’re dealing with a “foreign” family and the other upset at the lack of patience from the physician & how language barriers seem to be a difficulty they can’t escape. That image played in my head so much so that it began to affect the image I had for the future. I knew I wanted to pursue pharmacy–to make medicine and distribute it from my own practice, but that memory, as well as others, encouraged me to make sure that when I do build up my practice it’ll prioritize having people everyone can relate to/recognize. I want to work with people who identify with various cultures and speak various languages [including the nonverbal ones]. No one should ever walk into a building, meant to put their health first, and feel afraid to speak because the provider on the other end not only doesn’t look or sound like them, but also doesn’t try to understand them. We need more people who are people, and not just the generic look that is the majority of America. With increased racial diversity in healthcare, there’ll be more personalized healthcare as well as decreased discrimination. So many people of color refuse to go to hospitals because we are very aware of the very real threat of not having someone who looks like us, in said position of power, to advocate for us when the ones already there [in that powerful position] refuse to listen to us directly. Increased diversity will also give more opportunities and encourage the upbringing of safe spaces for people of color in/pursuing medicine. I recall when my mother, a registered nurse, told my sister and I of times when her patients refused to let her touch them, to let her do her job. Racism is a great disease, but it can be eradicated, primarily through initiatives to accept, understand, and accommodate all people. I’ve always been interested in medicine–the creation of it, how it works–but what good is specializing in a field if you can’t truly utilize it in its capacity [which is to heal all]. I have an immense interest in pharmacognosy, particularly, which is the creation of medicine with sources derived from plants. I feel as though there’s more to healing than just heading straight to using pharmaceuticals; healing comes in various forms and I aspire to build a practice that is well-rounded in it all [from preventive medicine to alternative choices to modern].

We were the most diverse school in the state; we were all similar in that none of us were similar to one another. Pope John XXIII High School resided in Everett, Massachusetts before it was shut down due to financial issues. So many of us had transferred to Arlington Catholic High School–going from the most diverse school to the least. The moment we stepped foot there we faced: staredowns, microaggressions, and racism like I’ve never seen before. I have always gone to diverse schools, had a diverse friend group, and was just so sheltered to real hate that when I finally experienced it, it hit me hard. My last two years of high school there were years of revelations. I realized how white the world is, and all the forms of racism that took shape throughout my life. It’s when you’re older that you recognize the big meanings behind all the little things that occurred during your development. I noticed that even within my diverse “shelter” there was hate there too. In middle school, we didn’t pay attention to the real effects behind all the “jokes” we had made at each other. We called it dark humor and gaslit each other. We didn’t feel the severity of the jokes until we were surrounded by people who didn’t look like us, individually or collectively. Minority against minority didn’t feel as serious as majority against minority. Those years of truly experiencing being a minority [an experience I believe my sheltered-self was privileged enough not to endure in my “diverse spaces” where this was not discussed enough about] was enough for me to say I don’t want to do it again. That was one of my reasons to join an HBCU–I have all my life to be a minority and I’m blessed to say I’m attending an institution where I don’t have to be one again before I’m thrown into the world as an adult. My second reason was that I wanted to be surrounded by black excellence, by people who looked like me and would inspire and motivate each other toward their goals. I understand that no matter which HBCU you attend you’ll be a part of an automatic family that’ll look out for you. I just felt that this was something that I (and all black people or poc) need in the world that we live in. As for what social justice means to me, it’s all about thriving for unity, equity, and equality. I’m aware that with the formers people assume that we can only have one and not the other. But really when you have equity, you bring about equality. When you cater to each individual’s needs, you help them all obtain a fair chance in the race of life. Striving for this is social justice. As for what I’ve done, I’ve: completed online sexual assault advocacy training through New Orleans Family Justice Center (and now awaiting in person training), been interning at STEM NOLA [a nonprofit organiztion whose mission is to engage New Orleans’s youth in the fields of STEM, a mission I believe is admirable as we actively show the youth that we have an interest in their future, some of who might find additional hardships due to how they identify] and started my blog Diary of a Mad Black Pearl [which serves to bring about communication and healing within the Haitian community and display representation]. I have and will continue to show that I am a woman for the people, a woman I am proud to be growing into thanks to the experiences that shaped me.