Kristian Pretashi

UConn School of Pharmacy, Class of 2018

I was born in Lezhe, Albania. At age 3, due to overall social unrest and the Albanian civil war, we immigrated to Italy as political refugees. Growing up as an immigrant I experienced first hand the struggles of living in an underserved urban population at an early age. At age 14, we moved from Italy to the United States, in West Hartford CT, where yet again I was faced with the challenge of adapting to a new and very different environment. By 2017 I will double major in Pharmacy Studies and Biological Sciences.

Working at Yale New Haven at the Smilow Cancer Hospital has been a great experience. The clinical experience and the diverse population encountered in the institutional environment have only fortified the need for me to focus on preventive care.

Thanks to UST I will be able to use my cultural competency and cultural humility that I have developed over the years. I hope that my problem-solving skills and communication skills with native fluency in many languages, like Albanian, Italian, and Spanish will be able to help bridge the health disparities of the underserved and aid in the flourishing of our interprofessional teams. As members, we will learn and grow from each other and our patients to ultimately better serve our population as professionals in our fields.