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Ava Ighani’s ties to The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth run deep, making her journey to become a student in the College of Pharmacy seem predestined. The second-year Doctor of Pharmacy student was born in February 1999 at the Osteopathic Medical Center of Texas when it was still located and operating on campus in February 1999. What’s more, her father, Dr. Jamshid Ighani, had graduated from HSC’s Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine just seven years earlier.

“My dad enrolled at TCOM when he was 24, from 1988 to 1992,” Ighani said. “He always had a clear goal: to become a doctor and make a difference in people’s lives.”

Dr. Ighani’s story is marked by resilience and perseverance. He fled Tehran, Iran at age 14 because of the political conflict, seeking freedom and opportunities in the United States. His inspiring quest to become a medical professional deeply influenced Ava’s dream of obtaining her Doctor of Pharmacy from at her legacy university.

“The reason he came here was to have freedom of religion and freedom of education because back in Iran there is no freedom of religion, freedom of speech or anything. So, he came here with a clean slate and started from scratch,” Ighani said about her father’s humble beginnings in the U.S.

As a woman of the Baha’i faith, Ava values the opportunity she has to follow in her father’s footsteps and pursue a doctorate in pharmacy.

 “A lot of my dad’s side of the family didn’t have the opportunity and they had no access, especially as a woman, as a Baha’i you do not have access to anything. His story always resonated with me and it made me realize that I really am grateful and at the same time, I don’t have an excuse because I grew up here. I was born at what was originally the Osteopathic Medical Center of Texas – now HSC’s Medical Education & Training Building – so I had no excuse but to reach for the stars,” Ighani said.

Just like her father she is motivated to make a difference in the world by helping others achieve better health. However, she is creating her own path in the health care field as a future pharmacist.

“My last year as an undergrad student at the University of North Texas in Denton, I took pharmacology and had a wonderful professor who just completely helped solidify my path, and I figured out that I wanted to pursue pharmacy and be able to cater to my community,” Ighani said.

One of Ighani’s favorite things about pharmacy school at HSC is the support she gets from faculty and her peers. She says that working in unison with her cohort has been a game changer and essential to pharmacy student success.

“Having friends that I really trust and I can go to, we just balance each other out mentally and emotionally. We do a lot for each other, but what I like specifically is the objective structural clinical exams,” Ighani said. “We have to meet with practice patients so everything we learned we have to apply. That helps to solidify if you gained a lot from what you learned.”

Entering her second year of pharmacy school, Ava has completed 120 hours of IPPE practice over the summer. She feels prepared to tackle this academic year with a new approach after everything she learned throughout her first year. She is eager to implement better lifestyle and wellness practices encouraged by the culture at HSC, which she hopes will allow her to continue enjoying and maximizing her PharmD journey.

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