Alumni Spotlight: Kushal Shah '26
Kushal Shah, PharmD, is a 2026 graduate of the University of Arizona R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy and a soon-to-be licensed pharmacist in Illinois and North Carolina. He begins his JD at the University of North Carolina School of Law in fall 2026, continuing his non-traditional path at the intersection of pharmacy and healthcare law. Born and raised in the Chicagoland area, where both of his parents are practicing pharmacists, he grew up around the profession and developed an early affinity for medicine and STEM alongside a parallel interest in the regulatory and legislative forces that shape how care actually reaches patients. That intersection is what drew him into pharmacy and continues to define the career he is building.
Alongside his PharmD, Shah earned a Graduate Certificate in Health Law for Health Professionals from the University of Arizona College of Law. His work outside the classroom was deliberately shaped around the policy side of the field: internships with the Illinois Pharmacists Association, a boutique pharmacy law firm, and APPE rotations at the United States Pharmacopeia and Quarles & Brady, one of the nation's leading pharmacy law practices. On his clinical rotations, he made a habit of tailoring presentations to each site's niche, walking community pharmacists through PBM legislation and infrastructure, and, at Optum Specialty, examining how vertical integration shapes patient copays and access.
Looking ahead, Shah plans to build a career in healthcare and pharmacy policy, with a long-term goal of shaping pharmacy legislation and policy at the national level, serving on a board of pharmacy, and teaching pharmacy law to the next generation of student pharmacists..
Q & A
What inspired you to become a pharmacist?
- I grew up inside the profession. Both of my parents are pharmacists, and much of my childhood was spent alongside them at community events and in the everyday work of patient care. That early exposure showed me something most people do not notice until much later: the barriers to good care are often not clinical but structural and legal. I watched infrastructure and regulation create roadblocks that shaped what patients could actually receive, and that intersection fascinated me. The interest deepened through my undergraduate years, and it clarified how I wanted to build my career. I chose pharmacy to understand patient care from the inside first, then to learn the legal framework around it, so that one day I could work where the two meet.
What is the best career advice you have ever received, and who gave it to you?
- The best career advice I ever received came from a guest speaker giving a fifteen-minute presentation in an undergraduate English class. His message was simple: do not follow the money, follow the passion. For whatever reason it resonated, and it has stayed with me ever since. Patient care is demanding work, and I have never seen a paycheck alone carry someone through the hard days. The people who find the work itself meaningful build lives they actually want. A salary alone never compounds the way a fulfilling career does, and that idea has shaped many major decisions I have made.
If you could go back in time, is there anything you would do differently in pharmacy school or your early career?
- I would have invested earlier in figuring out how I learn best, instead of borrowing study methods that worked for other people but not for me. It took me too long to realize the most effective system is the one built around your own habits. I would also take burnout seriously from the start. It is easy to tell yourself things will ease up after graduation, but that is not how it works, and the habits you build in school are the ones you carry forward. Protecting your balance is not something to postpone.
Outside of work, what are some of your hobbies or interests that help you maintain balance?
- Outside of work I have become a competitive pickleball and billiards player with a serious interest in health and fitness. Physical activity and competition, both recreational and serious, do more than keep me in shape. They keep my mind sharp, give me a social outlet, and provide the reset that keeps me steady when the work is demanding. For me these are not just hobbies, they are a core part of how I stay balanced over the long run.
How would you like to be remembered by your colleagues and patients?
- I would want to be remembered as someone who questioned things. I have never been comfortable accepting how something is done simply because that is how it has always been done, and I have always believed the systems we work in can be made better. If colleagues and patients remembered me as a person who asked the hard questions and worked alongside the people around me to build something better, especially in how care is structured and regulated, that would mean I did the job the way I intended to.