A group of pharmacy students held a Ramadan health initiative event in Norwood on April 26, where they spoke about the COVID-19 vaccines and how to manage their well-being and medications while fasting.
The outreach took place at Safe Medical Center, 3099 Bainbridge Ave. and featured about 52 people.
Maliha Tabassum, of Norwood, is a six year pharmacy student at Long Island University in Brooklyn, and has been doing patient care events since 2017. She noticed that many in the large Bengali population of Norwood hesitate to ask questions to their health care provider due to the language barrier.
“I have a strong passion for helping patients, especially who are not native English speakers,” she told the Bronx Times.
Tabassum and Shamim Ahmed, a fellow final year medical student, who are both Bengali, talked to the patients in Bengali and the parents were thrilled to have someone speak their language and answer their questions. They educated them on how to make appointments and it was such a success that the residents asked them to hold a second event in May.
“One of the main reasons I pursued medicine was to one day help the same Bengali community that raised me, ” Ahmed said. “I feel grateful for the opportunities I had over the last decade for being involved in various health outreach projects for this community. I hope to continue to be an advocate for health and a helping hand for those in need.”
Dr. Yuliana Toderika, a registered pharmacist and faculty at Long Island University supervised the event and pharmacy students Manreet Uppal, Tintu Yohannan and Darya Korenkova all helped facilitate the program.
