Nidhin 'Nate' Mohan, pharmacist who owned Deer Park's New Island Pharmacy, dies at 49

The anecdotes abound: Pharmacist Nidhin "Nate" Mohan, of Deer Park’s New Island Pharmacy, would leave the shop to bring prescriptions out to a mom in the parking lot so her son, who used a wheelchair, wouldn’t have to get out of the car. And while many pharmacists will make compounds — multiple drugs mixed for a patient’s custom prescription — Mohan would even do it for creatures great and small at the neighboring Deer Park Animal Hospital.

He also delivered meals daily for two weeks, after his 12-hour shifts, to the coronavirus-stricken father of a staff member, according to a pharmaceutical trade magazine in 2020.

"The stories don't end there — there're a million things I could tell you my dad did," said Krishna Mohan, a pre-med student at Hofstra University in Hempstead. Sometimes when his father would deliver a prescription to the home of someone with mobility issues, "he would make it a point to bring a pizza and just sit with them and talk to them." Sometimes when a customer was short on cash, "He would say, ‘You know what? Pay me next week.’ "

"He loved what he did. He cared immensely about the profession and cared a lot about the community," said David Reich-Hale, a public relations senior adviser for Northwell Health. He filled his own family’s prescriptions at New Island. Mohan "would answer any questions anyone had. Remarkable patience toward every customer. Deliveries to anyone who needed their medicine but was too sick to go out."

Mohan, of Woodbury, died Aug. 15 at South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore following a cardiac arrest. He was 49.

Although his family said he was born June 2, 1976, in Uttar Pradesh, a state in northern India, his official Indian birth registration and U.S. governmental records give May 27, 1977. He was raised in the city of Thrissur in Kerala, a state bordering the Arabian Sea. His father, Mohanakurup Anjiliparambil Narayanapillai "A.N." Mohan, is a pharmaceuticals executive and leader in industry trade associations. His mother, Ponnamma Kalloor Kesavan Nair Mohan, is a retired nurse.

Nidhin obtained his bachelor’s degree at the Sri Ramakrishna Institute of Paramedical Sciences College of Pharmacy in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, in 1998, followed by a master’s degree in 2001 from the JSS College of Pharmacy in Mysuru, Karnataka. He earned his doctorate at Kasturba Medical College, in Manipal, Karnataka, in 2003.

Move to U.S.

During his clinical rotation at Kasturba, he met medical teammate Leena Nair — now a psychiatrist affiliated with Nassau University Medical Center — who had been raised in Forest Hills, Queens, and Hicksville. They married and immigrated to the United States, where Mohan secured work as a technician at a Forest Hills Rite Aid within days of arrival.

While working toward his American pharmacist license, he and his wife lived in Edison, New Jersey. They later bought a home in Hicksville, where they would raise their family. Mohan held pharmacist positions at both chain and independent drugstores before opening New Island Pharmacy in October 2012.

It became a stage for his outgoing and charismatic personality, his family said.

"He was very warm, and everybody who spoke to him felt like they were very close," his wife recalled. "You could just meet him one time for 10 minutes and immediately feel that warmth — that feeling of being close to him and not a stranger."

"He really did think of the people who came into his pharmacy as patients — he didn't just look at them as customers," Reich-Hale said.

He often was spontaneous, his wife said: "It would be maybe Sunday at 7 o'clock at night and he’d say, ‘Let's go to this restaurant in the city. Let's just drive down there!’ "

A lover of the outdoors, from Colorado to Caumsett State Park, he often would be accompanied by his beloved Bernedoodle, Kobe — named after Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant, though Mohan was a fan of the Knicks and the Yankees.

And often he would travel to Albany, where Mohan would advocate for independent pharmacies with lawmakers at the state Capitol. He belonged to professional groups including The Long Island Society of Health-System Pharmacists and the Pharmacists Society of the State of New York.

In addition to his parents, of Thrissur, Kerala, India, and his wife and son, Mohan is survived by his teenage daughter, Naina, and sister, Nishi Mohan, of Dubai.

Visitation was Aug. 19 at the Claude R. Boyd-Spencer Funeral Home in Babylon. A funeral service and Hindu pooja ceremony was held there the next day. Mohan was cremated at Mount Pleasant Crematory in Center Moriches. His family plans to scatter his ashes in India, in a river near where he grew up.