Chih-yu (George) Shyu

UConn School of Pharmacy, Class of 2018

I was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan and came to the states when I was thirteen. I graduated from Rutgers University with a B.S. in Animal Biotechnology in 2009.

After graduation, I spend six years in the pharmaceutical industry as a chemist. My responsibility was to meticulously examine each batch of the drug product to ensure its safety and efficacy. It has helped me to cultivate a keen attention to detail. At the same time I was working in the retail pharmacy, which has exposed me to the medically underserved population. It has made me realize that, as a pharmacist I can apply the knowledge and crafts that I have learned to help people receive better care.

Being an immigrant myself, I was without health insurance and had limited access to dental or primary care for the majority of my adolescence. When I was in need of medical attention, I worried that going to the hospitals might subject me to an unaffordable bill. When I started working and got health insurance from my employer, I learned more about the U.S. HealthCare system. I have also taught many newcomers about the importance of getting access to health care. This transition played an important part in driving me to enter pharmacy school. For a better part of my youth, the pharmacist was the only health care professional that I had access to and I believe this is also true for many other immigrants. When I become a pharmacist, I want to make myself available to the underserved population. Not only to help them obtain their medication, but to show them how to access other health care professionals.

UST presents a revolutionary approach to the Health Care Professional Education. Traditionally, students within different disciplines of health care do not have the opportunity to cooperate with one another until later in their student career. This practice presents a problem as the students often do not have enough understanding of other professions to truly achieve a cohesive relationship. As UST Scholars, however, students are able to be imbued in an inter-professionally oriented training environment earlier on in their education. This allows the students to understand the strength of each profession and how to incorporate themselves into the team to attain greater outcomes. As a student pharmacist in the UST, I am determined to become a more worthy, useful agent in the healthcare system, and I hope to inspire other health care professionals to advocate for our irreplaceable role.