Sixth-year Pharmacy student Vibhuti Arya has always dreamed of
being a teacher and describes herself as “an educator at heart.”
However, in recent years her desire to teach has undergone a
metamorphosis and she now hopes to concentrate on teaching
diversity and cultural competency to heath professionals after her
graduation from St. John’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in 2006.
Vibhuti has learned that teaching health care providers the
language of a client group is not enough and that it’s as
important, if not more, to help pharmacists, physicians, nurses and
other health professionals to understand people’s culture, the way
they interact with others, their beliefs, customs and priorities as
well. This knowledge, she believes, opens up the lines of
communications between provider and client/patient and allows them
to play a more active role in their health care.
She recently articulated the need for such education in an
article she wrote for the July/August issue of the Journal of the
American Pharmacists
Association entitled, “Becoming Culturally Competent.” In it,
she explains that, “’Diversity’ means different things to different
people. Culture, race, gender, religious background, socioeconomic
status, physical characteristics, geographic location and
variation” are [all] encompassed by ‘diversity’.”
So convinced of the importance of this concept, Vibhuti selected
the themes of diversity and cultural competency as her platform
when she was elected 2005-2006 President of the American
Pharmacists Association Academy of Student Pharmacists
(APhA-ASP). Since her inauguration in April 2005, she has
been visiting Pharmacy schools around the country, making
presentations to deans, faculty and students and often emphasizing
the need to incorporate cultural competency into Pharmacy
programs.
While “teaching remains central” to Vibhuti, she can envision
herself as a motivational speaker advocating for the profession or
a consultant in a global program to establish pharmacy care in
other countries – or both! For the short term, she will head south
in mid-October to Washington, DC for a four-week rotation with the
Food and Drug Administration, which doesn’t usually work with
student pharmacists.
“Vibhuti is a tremendous student leader and a wonderful person”
according to Dean Robert Mangione of the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. “She has a deep commitment to serving
others with a special dedication to assisting the urban poor. I am
very proud of Vibhuti and grateful for the many contributions that
she has made, and will continue to make, to our University and to
the pharmacy profession.”
Professor Maria Marzella Sulli, Assistant Clinical Professor in
the Clinical Pharmacy Practice, who worked as advisor to the St.
John’s chapter of the APhA-ASP when Vibhuti was its President,
remembers her well: "It is a privilege to work with Vibhuti. She
embodies all the qualities of someone who will be very successful
in anything she sets out to do. She is fearless, genuine, and
tirelessly dedicated to the profession of pharmacy and to speaking
out for those who are less fortunate. She is an inspiration to
everyone around her."
Read Vibhuti Arya’s inaugural
speech.