Aasma Hafeez

After being born and raised in Egypt, migrating to Canada, and attending college in Buffalo and Long Island, Aasma Hafeez understands better than most the value of finding a place where we feel at home.

“I’m so glad I’ve found the right place to work, and the right place to go to school,” she says. “The way they teach at Sage is wonderful. And the professors, they listen to your problems, and help solve them.”

Aasma has two more clinicals to complete to finish up her M.S. at the School of Health Sciences – Nurse Practitioner. She’s on track to become an Adult Gerontology Nurse Practitioner.

It’s been a mighty long road she’s traveled to reach this goal.

In Egypt as a young woman, Aasma taught school but her dream had always been to get into the medical field. It just seemed there were too many challenges to overcome to reach that goal. That’s why she migrated to Canada at age 37, believing she’d have more of chance there, and eventually made her way into the United States. 

“My parents were afraid for me,” Aasma remembers. “It’s not easy to do what I’ve done, getting adapted to the culture all by yourself.”

But she’s done quite well. While earning her master’s, Aasma has been working at St. Peter’s Hospital in Albany, where her days and nights have included spending time with patients in the COVID fever clinic. 

At St. Peter’s, Aasma says, she had the good fortune to work with a veteran nurse who studied at Sage decades ago. “She learned to be a nurse in the same way I learned – the best way.”

Once she becomes a nurse practitioner, Aasma hopes eventually to own her own practice and help the elderly to receive compassionate medical care.

“I don’t have kids,” she says, “so I want to do something that has lasting impact. Something good.”