Finalist 2

What problem in the world would you most like to help solve, and why?

Before Disease Takes Hold

If you ask ten different people what the greatest problem facing our healthcare system is, you will probably receive ten different answers. Some might point to the cost of care, others to unequal access, shortages of healthcare workers, or the rapid rise of chronic disease. While all of these are important issues, I have gradually become convinced that many of them stem from a more fundamental problem: our healthcare system and our approach to treatment is overwhelmingly reactive in nature. We devote tremendous effort to treating disease after it has already developed, yet comparatively little attention is given to preventing many of those diseases from developing in the first place.

This is not a conclusion I reached from scanning the pages of a textbook or poring over academic journals. It is something I have slowly come to appreciate over the past four years working as a pharmacy technician. Spending thousands of hours in a retail pharmacy has given me the opportunity to watch healthcare from a perspective that most patients never see. Every day I process prescriptions, speak with patients, and work alongside pharmacists whose decisions have a direct impact on the health of our community. Over time, certain patterns become impossible to ignore.

Too often, I see patients come into the pharmacy carrying bags filled with medications prescribed to treat diseases such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and heart disease. I want to be very clear that these medications are remarkable achievements of modern medicine. They prolong life, improve quality of life, and in many cases prevent devastating complications that would otherwise occur. They are indispensable. Yet I frequently find myself wondering how many of those same patients might never have needed such intensive therapy had their underlying disease process been recognized and addressed years earlier.

This perspective should not be entirely surprising given my own background. I grew up in a household where both of my parents practiced alternative medicine. As a child, the conversations about health that I had with my parents centered on nutrition, medicinal herbs, chiropractic care, and supplementation rather than medications. Although my own interests eventually led me toward pharmacy and evidence-based medicine, I do not think I abandoned those early lessons altogether. Instead, my education has allowed me to bring the two perspectives together. I have come to believe that modern medicine is extraordinarily effective at treating disease, but it becomes even more powerful when paired with a greater emphasis on preventing disease before irreversible damage has occurred.

Working in the pharmacy has only strengthened that belief. Patients often view the pharmacy simply as the place where medications are dispensed, but I have learned that pharmacists occupy a much broader role within healthcare. They administer vaccines that prevent infectious disease, identify dangerous drug interactions before harm occurs, counsel patients beginning new therapies, and frequently serve as the most accessible healthcare professional a patient encounters. Every conversation across the consultation window has the potential to influence a patient's health long before they are admitted to a hospital or urgent care.

As I prepare to enter the University of Illinois at Chicago Retzky College of Pharmacy, I know that my current understanding of pharmacy represents only a small fraction of what the profession encompasses. There are countless areas of practice that I have yet to explore, and I expect that many of my current assumptions might change throughout my education. Even so, one conviction has remained remarkably consistent throughout my experiences as a technician.

I do not think the ultimate measure of success in healthcare should be how effectively we respond after disease has already taken hold. Rather, it should be how often we can prevent patients from reaching that point in the first place.

This is the problem I hope to spend my career addressing. I do not expect that a single pharmacist can fundamentally transform the healthcare system overnight. But meaningful change doesn’t always begin with sweeping reforms. It begins with individual interactions: encouraging a patient to receive a vaccine, recognizing that someone is overdue for preventive screening, helping a newly diagnosed diabetic understand how lifestyle changes can complement medication, or simply taking the time to answer questions that might otherwise go unasked.

Those moments may seem small in isolation, but to me they represent something much larger. They are opportunities not merely to dispense medications, but to preserve health before it is lost. To me, that is one of the highest aspirations of pharmacy, and it is the reason I have chosen to devote my education and career to this profession.