Second-year medical student Sean Teebagy, a Shrewsbury native and Holy Cross graduate, is focused on the Worcester region.
“Growing up as the son of a physician, I always knew physicians have an impact on the community, but I didn’t understand that impact,” said Teebagy, whose father is Anthony Teebagy, MD, associate professor of orthopedics & physical rehabilitation. “Now, each day at UMass Medical School, I am learning more and more about the role of a physician and how lucky I am to be in a career that will allow me to contribute to a city I care deeply about.”
Teebagy said he was driven to become a physician during high school, when he was exposed to the heroic efforts of caregivers during the Boston Marathon attack in 2013.
“It was certainly one of the wildest experiences of my life,” he said. “We finally stopped running when we were down the street from Boston Medical Center. I was out of breath and scared, but I could see emergency room physicians waiting outside the hospital ready to help. In that moment, seeing those white coats was extremely reassuring and I knew I wanted to help others feel the same way.”
Outside of the classroom, Teebagy is involved in a number of organizations including the Massachusetts Medical Society and CAPCaT (Center for Advancing Point of Care Technologies) at UMMS. He has also helped run independent initiatives, including a COVID-19 student task force and an MCAT tutoring business.
“In starting the student task force, we wanted to find a way where we could help health care professionals who are on the frontlines, doing whatever we can to make their transition better,” Teebagy said. “We’ve had dozens of volunteers rally around different missions, whether it was collecting PPE or training clinicians to use telehealth.”
Teebagy said UMMS has given him the chance to connect to the patient population on a personal level, in both his coursework and his extracurriculars.
“From the first day of classes, they show us patients and tell us their stories before they talk about their symptoms,” he said. “This is truly a school that cares about people and makes sure their students do the same from the start.”
The Student Spotlight series features students in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Graduate School of Nursing and School of Medicine. Do you know an interesting student who should be included? Email UMassMed News at UMassChanCommunications@umassmed.edu.
