Tischa Becker
It’s 86 miles on a dirt road, or 146 miles on the pavement, from Albuquerque to the Alamo Navajo reservation, but it can seem much farther than that. It’s an isolated community, and the people look out for each other and learn to depend on themselves. When it comes to their health, a big part of the picture is a dedicated pharmacist clinician originally from Kansas, by way of the UNM College of Pharmacy.
Tischa Becker spent 16 years as a pharmacy tech in a Wichita retail store before deciding it was time for a change. She was one of the very few out-of-state students accepted to the College that year, but it very quickly became home.
“UNM believed in me,” she says, “and I fell in love with New Mexico—and with the special rewards of rural practice. I wanted to help people, and I can’t thank the College of Pharmacy enough for giving me the knowledge and clinical skills to find my dream career.”
Becker is the director of pharmacy for Alamo Navajo Indian Health Center, an interdisciplinary clinic that combines pharmacy, nursing and medicine. Before her arrival, the clinic had been without a pharmacist for five years.
“It’s a terrific role,” Becker says. “I’m able to appreciate each patient’s history, and I get to use my clinical knowledge as well as my pharmacy training every day. We help carry the load for all the providers, offering stability to the community and keeping the providers up-to-date on the latest knowledge in pharmacy. It really has taught me how to ‘think outside the box’ for treatment in rural New Mexico. I learn something new daily.”
With such a large proportion of New Mexicans living in rural communities with limited access to health care, the need for community saints, such as Becker, is more important than ever.
How many worlds, small and large, will College of Pharmacy alumni transform, and will yours be one of them? With your vital support, the answers are “many” and “yes.”