Binghamton University expands global pharmacy partnerships in India

With the help of Binghamton University’s articulation agreement with Nirma University’s School of Pharmacy and the Lois B. DeFleur International Innovation Fund, two faculty members were able to visit India this January, working to create collaborations that expose pharmacy students to international healthcare opportunities.

“This is part of a larger outreach of understanding global health initiatives and global health challenges. By increasing our students’ exposure to another country’s healthcare system, it helps our students broaden their horizons and allows them to think outside of the box,” said Elizabeth Hageman, director of skills education and clinical assistant professor of pharmacy practice.

Hageman, along with KarenBeth H. Bohan, professor of pharmacy practice, took a 10-day trip to Nirma University Institute of Pharmacy, in Ahmedabad, and the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, in Manipal, to share curriculum overviews with collaborating faculty; visit local hospital hospitals within the region; meet with hospital administrators, pharmacists, and students; and present at the CPCON 2026 11th International Conference on Clinical Pharmacy. The topic for this conference was ‘Next-gen Clinical Pharmacy towards safer and more progressive patient care’.

Hageman, who joined the project this year thanks to mentorship and encouragement from Bohan, was able to participate thanks to funds from the Lois B. DeFleur International Innovation Fund.

“The award is meant to be a seed fund for faculty to establish partnerships with people from abroad. That’s what I did with the Nirma University faculty — and we can now begin potentially collaborative research projects, get students involved, and share curriculum models to better understand how we can benefit from each other,” Hageman said. “I think that the award is a steppingstone for developing research initiatives and long-term collaborative relationships. There’s a huge advantage to being able to meet people in person!”

Her proposal focused on continued collaboration in the long-term agreement with Nirma University while creating opportunities for students from both countries to interact, an initiative she believes is critical to their development.

“We met with prospective students and parents that might be coming to Binghamton in the fall and beyond,” she added. “But even beyond that, the United States healthcare system has many providers who come from other countries, and our graduating students need to be able to work with people who were trained elsewhere. When they go into healthcare, they are going to be working with physicians and other providers who were not trained in the U.S., so this exposure helps prepare them.”

Bohan — who previously established collaborations with pharmacy professionals in Kampala, Uganda, while engaging American pharmacy students on four-week experiential rotations and Ugandan pharmacists in an eight-week training program in the United States — has been involved in the work in India since its early conception.

For her sabbatical in the fall of 2024, she visited India for the first time. Both then and now, she found that pharmacy practice is handled very differently in the U.S. and India, something she hopes to communicate to her students.

“Here in the U.S., pharmacy coursework is governed by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) ... In India, however, it’s a prescribed curriculum. They also limit the number of students who can be enrolled and who can talk directly to physicians,” Bohan said. “When Nirma students enroll here, they get to see what collaborative practice can be. They are trained in our Pharmacy Skills Lab; they go on experiential rotations. When they go back, they will know what it’s like to be able to converse with other healthcare practitioners. And for our Binghamton students, I think these opportunities expose them to another culture.”

In addition to Hageman and Bohan’s effort directly in India, they also worked to provide a virtual opportunity for students that mirrored their international visit. During the event, held as part of the course, PHRM 551: Public Health and Global Health Problems, 26 Nirma students worked with 37 Binghamton students on a set of predefined questions, such as “How is diabetes treated in your country?” or “What role do pharmacists fill at the community pharmacy level?” aimed at exposing these cultural differences.

“The biggest thing, to us, is helping students understand that the way things work in the U.S. isn’t the same as all over the world,” Hageman said. “We had the students compare what happens here in the U.S. and what happens in India so they could have a conversation about the factors that impact these differences. I think it’s important for them to have a broader perspective of the world, and of global health in general.”

Looking even further ahead, Hageman and Bohan hope to continue building momentum in this project. They will continue to collaborate with the Indian universities by working with Nirma University faculty members on potential pharmacovigilance research. They are also working together on an abstract for an international conference poster presentation in September\ they hope to find funding to attend.

The basis of any work they do from this point on, however, has been thanks to the collaborations they established before and during this visit.

“Even before I went to India for the first time, I was meeting online by Zoom with people from these universities. But going there in person is so much better,” Bohan added. “It helps solidify your relationship, and you can talk much more easily. Now that we’ve been to Nirma, it’ll be that much easier to collaborate. I’m excited to see what happens.”