He Grew Up in Providence, Has Multiple Degrees from URI & Harvard and Founded a New Type of Pharmacy
He Grew Up in Providence, Has Multiple Degrees from URI & Harvard and Founded a New Type of Pharmacy
Fernandez’s back story is compelling —he grew up in Providence and went to public elementary and middle schools. He attended Classical High School and then the University of Rhode Island.
He earned four degrees from URI including a doctorate in pharmacy and then attended Harvard University.
Fernandez was loaded with academic healthcare and business hardware.
When asked with his academic achievement in healthcare, why he choose to come back to Providence and start Asthenis, a community pharmacy, he said it was the connection.
“[We set up at] Wiggins Village - it's a Winn property. It's low income, it's the projects, it's on Cranston Street. My relation to this -- to the Village -- is I grew up nearby in Hanover Street," said Fernandez. “Hanover Street, it's low income, so that area itself -- the surrounding area -- is a low-income area, so a lot of people here in the community I knew growing up. [They] recognized me and know me and I felt like there's a need for this service there.”
Fernandez sees a gap in healthcare and hopes to provide greater education to residents in the area.
“The average length of a doctor's office visit is 15 minutes, so if you've ever been a patient, you've ever been to your doctor's office, usually you feel a little bit rushed, right? It's not the doctor's fault but that's just the way things are built into the system,” said Fernandez during an interview on GoLocal LIVE.
Fernandez comes across as a cool -- and confident -- entrepreneur — the pharmacist is ready for all business challenges.
“On the business side I was very thoughtful, very carefully but just as many entrepreneurs can say, you don't know what comes up. It's just your ability to kind of just extinguish a fire, right? Fires are always going to come up and so you just kind of just have that extinguisher there right by your side,” said Fernandez.
Fernandez credits Social Enterprise Greenhouse’s Kelly Ramirez’s support as a key to helping launch Asthenis and Commerce RI’s Small Business Assistance program for helping to provide critical early-stage capital.
