From A Childhood Sketch to a Career in Cancer Care and Technology

My mother started Passover cleaning in February. Yes — February. So when I came back to my parents’ home, I helped sort through a few old childhood boxes. In one of them, tucked between my diaries and school notebooks, I found a drawing I had made at the age of ten. My third-grade teacher in Tel Aviv had given us an assignment: “Draw how you see yourself in the future.”

In my picture, I had carefully sketched TEVA’s green, italicized, four-letter logo in the top right corner. Behind it were shelves upon shelves of neatly arranged boxes and bottles — my very organized, serious childhood vision of a pharmacy. And there I was: an older version of myself, maybe in my thirties, standing behind a counter with a warm, welcoming smile, holding a paper prescription in one hand and a pill bottle in the other, proudly dressed in a white coat.

I don’t know where my interest in chemistry and medications came from, but genetics may have played a role: my great-grandfather was a well-known chemistry professor in Dushanbe during the Soviet era, and relatives on my grandmother’s side worked in forensic science in Dushanbe and pharmaceutical manufacturing in Israel.

Fast forward twenty years. At 35, I am — Baruch HaShem — indeed a pharmacist. I still wear a white coat (at least some days), still carry that same smile I drew all those years ago, and my work still revolves around medications. I speak daily with physicians, nurses, and fellow pharmacists, and the responsibility feels just as meaningful as my ten-year-old self imagined.

But here’s the twist I could never have predicted: Instead of being surrounded by shelves of capsules, creams, and syrups, I now work among computers, automation, digital platforms — and yes, artificial intelligence. Nice to meet you, my name is Rozalina, and I am an Oncology and Hematology Pharmacy Informatics Specialist at a large, 12-location cancer center network in the New York Tri-State area.

Oncology is a unique and highly specialized corner of pharmacy. In fact, most pharmacy schools dedicate only a lecture or two to cancer medications — not because they’re unimportant, but because the field is expanding at lightning speed. New treatments are researched, FDA-approved, and brought to market almost every month.

When I first walked into an outpatient infusion center as a pharmacy intern, it felt like landing on another planet. The medications weren’t the familiar names I’d learned in school. Instead, they sounded like complex, almost musical strings of syllables: Ado-trastuzumab emtansine. Inotuzumab ozogamicin. Mirvetuximab soravtansine. And then there were investigational drugs with no names at all — just letters and numbers that looked more like license plates than medications.

As a chemistry major stepping into this wonderland of molecules, I was completely fascinated. During any quiet moments between compounding IV medications and organizing medication shelves, I devoured package inserts — those long, white papers with impossibly tiny font tucked into every medication box. I wanted to know everything: What does this drug treat? How does it work at the molecular level? Why does it cause certain side effects? How do we monitor patients to make sure these powerful, hazardous medications help more than they harm? That curiosity pulled me into oncology pharmacy.

After graduating from pharmacy school, I spent about five years working as an oncology pharmacist in busy infusion centers, where more than 150 children and adults received chemotherapy each day. Some patients came in for a single injection; others received twelve different medications in one visit.

My role was multifaceted. I verified every medication order by reviewing treatment plans and lab results, ensuring doses were safe and appropriate. I compounded chemotherapy looking like an astronaut- wearing layers of protective gowns, masks, hair covers, and booties. I partnered closely with physicians and nurses to adjust treatments in real time. Behind the scenes, I also managed inventory systems, tracked controlled substances, monitored medication waste, and prepared clinical and financial review presentations for leadership meetings on newly approved cancer drugs.

So if you’ve ever waited for an infusion and wondered why it takes time — there is always a pharmacist in the background, carefully compounding medications and triple-checking every detail to make sure your treatment is safe and tailored specifically for you.

Eventually, I felt the pull to make an impact beyond one patient at a time. I could see the oncology “machine” growing busier — higher patient volumes, increasingly complex therapies, and more data than any human could reasonably process alone. That’s when I realized that pharmacy informatics — the intersection of medication expertise, technology, and workflow design — could help strengthen the system, reduce errors, and improve care for patients on a much larger scale.

Today, as an oncology informatics pharmacist, I collaborate with physicians, nursing and pharmacy leadership, safety teams, laboratory services, and revenue teams. Together, we design safer workflows, build clinical alerts that stop potential mistakes before they reach a patient, and optimize robotic systems that store, package, and even compound medications. This work often happens behind the scenes, but its impact is felt everywhere. The systems we build now support dozens of cancer centers across the Tri-State area, caring for hundreds of patients every single day.

And yes — I now help develop AI-based pharmacy verification tools.

Recently, I led a continuing education presentation for pharmacists, technicians, students, and residents, including hospital pharmacy leaders, managers, and directors. The focus was the future of our profession — and how we can responsibly integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into oncology pharmacy practice. AI offers exciting opportunities to enhance efficiency and clinical care, but its success depends on thoughtful evaluation, new technological and data-literacy skills, and evolving regulatory frameworks. Preparing students and supporting practicing pharmacists and technicians will be essential as AI becomes part of everyday practice.

The reason I’m sharing this story is simple. I want young students — especially those just beginning to imagine their future careers — to know that pharmacy offers far more paths than the community counter most people are familiar with.

Community pharmacy is a vital and incredibly demanding profession. It requires sharp attention to detail, constant multitasking, leadership, and emotional resilience. Pharmacists are often the last stop for patients who are tired, sick, overwhelmed, and searching for relief. I know this firsthand. I worked in community settings as an intern, and I have deep respect for the pharmacists who show up and do this work every day.

But today, pharmacy is expanding in every direction. When I graduated, the “big three” career paths were community, hospital, or industry. Now, the landscape includes informatics, population health, specialty pharmacy, regulatory science, oncology operations, artificial intelligence development, pharmacogenomics— and many roles that didn’t even exist a decade ago. Our profession is growing, and we’re advocating more than ever for pharmacists to practice at the top of their license, with broader clinical authority and deeper involvement in patient care.

So if you’re a student reading this — or a parent, mentor, or teacher of one — know this: pharmacy is not a single road. It’s a vibrant map with many routes, some well-traveled and others waiting to be drawn. The future starts with a blank page, a big dream, and the courage to draw it — and more often than not, that first sketch is more accurate than you ever imagined.

Rozalina Abramov, Doctor of Pharmacy