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Lamya Islam is a first-year (P1) pharmacy student at ����ֱ��’s School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Her brother, Eshraq Islam PharmD, ’24, recently graduated from SOPPS and is completing his residency at NYU Langone Health. Their father is also in the field, working at North Shore University Hospital in New Hyde Park, N.Y.

“On my dad’s side, we have a few other people in healthcare fields, but in terms of our family, we’re the ‘side with the pharmacists,’” says Lamya Islam, a Long Island native. “We make the joke that someday we can have our own practice!”

Lamya Islam completed her undergraduate degree in biology at Stony Brook University with a concentration in neuroscience and psychology. However, after some encouragement from Eshraq Islam, she followed her brother to ����ֱ�� for her doctoral degree.

“When I was deciding and still unsure, Eshraq had a heart-to-heart, saying that he would support me through whatever I chose,” Lamya Islam says. “It meant a lot to me. Knowing he would be in my corner, no matter what, was so helpful.”

Lamya Islam says her pharmacy road hit pit stops, and that her relationship with her brother wasn’t always so encouraging. Like most siblings five years apart, the pair had to make up some distance.

“When I entered seventh grade, he was finishing 12th grade, so I entered whenever he exited,” she says. “I always admired him in a way, but in terms of how close we are — I was an annoying younger sibling, trying to get him to spend time with me. And he did, although he sometimes gave me an unplugged Xbox controller and told me I was playing the game!”

Eventually, though, as Lamya Islam matured, she believed the field evened out. Thanks to her brother’s footsteps, she knew ����ֱ�� provided a more intimate school setting where “the faculty could respond faster, and it feels more personal,” and thanks to her brother’s classmates — some of whom Lamya Islam got close to during Eshraq Islam’s time at ����ֱ�� — she had a good outlook on available opportunities in the area and clubs to join.

For example, she is considering joining a club focusing on psychiatry specializations, one of her interests, in the future. Although Lamya Islam says she came to the field on her own after exploring other options, she credits her brother with some of her changing opinions about the role of a pharmacist, as she continues to grow (and the family takes one step closer to that family practice!).

“Through my brother, I realized pharmacy was a lot more hands-on, a lot more patient-care-oriented than I originally thought,” she says. “It’s a more accessible type of healthcare. How often are patients and their care teams going to talk to their doctor versus a pharmacist about their medication? Nine times out of 10, pharmacists are the ones who are getting you your medicine.”