Translating Prescriptions Into Compassion
Pharmacy Alum is Honored to be the "First Line of Counseling" For Patients
Tatyana Bazarova, PharmD, was a teenager when her grandmother arrived from Russia. “She spoke no English, so she loved going to the pharmacy in our Brooklyn community,” Dr. Bazarova says. “It was Russian-owned. They spoke to her in her native language and explained everything about her medications. They made her feel cared for.”
So it followed, that when Bazarova was in college and torn between dentistry and pharmacy, the decision had already been made. She just hadn’t realized it until that moment.
In 2017, she graduated from Touro College of Pharmacy. Today, she is clinical/operations pharmacy manager at Mount Sinai-Union Square. “I chose correctly by going to Touro and studying pharmacology,” she says. “I learned about so many different career choices in the field and now I get to work in a really awesome area of pharmacy!”
Make those two really awesome areas of pharmacy. As clinical manager for dermatology, she sees patients with every imaginable disease affecting their skin—whether from eczema to psoriasis vulgaris to hidradenitis suppurativa—as well as other, lesser conditions that nonetheless carry physical and emotional pain.
First Line of Counseling
“As a clinical pharmacist, I am the first line of counseling,” she says, adding that she explains medications, teaches patients to inject themselves if that’s what the dermatologist prescribes, and offers information and emotional support. “They are so grateful, but so am I,” she says. “I get to build relationships and watch them improve, and with my help, their quality of life improves, sometimes dramatically. It’s an amazing honor for me.”
In her second role, as operations manager of Mount Sinai’s pharmacy, Bazarova oversees staffing, budgeting and new workflow implementation, among other duties. “I like the variety that comes with being in the clinic with patients one day, and the next in the pharmacy, managing and maintaining therapeutic infusion pharmacy operations,” she says.
Bazarova credits her professors and internships through Touro for preparing her to handle two very different, but complementary, roles. What’s more, her current place of employment began with a student internship five years ago.
“The professors taught me what I needed to know academically, and the program requires rotations, so you are in a hospital or a clinic and other situations,” she says. “The experiences open your eyes to the many roles a pharmacist can fill.”
A married mother of two little ones, Bazarova doesn’t have the same success managing time for herself. But when she can sneak away, she is hooked on cross stitching—“so relaxing and stress relieving”—and catching up with her grandmother. “I am happy to say she is well,” Bazarova reports, “and that her favorite pharmacy is still there.”
