#young casey

Young Casey

· Kaycee was born to David & Rose MacTavish in Philadelphia, PA. Her father was a high school teacher at a small Catholic school, and her mother was a part-time editor for a local newspaper. The family was considered lower-middle-income, and they really struggled financially at times.

· Rose became very ill when Kaycee was four and spent the next 2 years in and out of hospitals. This impacted Kaycee profoundly in many ways. This was where her anxiety disorder originated. The financial toll of medical bills was devastating. This helped shape her attitudes about social inequity and access to medical services. Lastly, this is where Dr. Kaycee MacClennan was born, she never shared that desire until she was in high school, but one night she promised all her stuffed animals that she was going to be a doctor and make people like her mom better. She still has two of those stuffed animals today, and she treasures them.

· She was an only child, and she liked that very much. She is very close with both of her parents.

· Kaycee spent some of her summers with her grandparents, who lived on a farm in rural PA.

· She was a city kid and she loved it. She says the diversity, exposure to different cultures and learning street smarts helped make her the person she is today, and she is grateful. Oh, and sidewalks. She didn’t realize places don’t have them until she moved to the suburbs, and she wasn’t pleased.

· Her dad eventually became a principal at a suburban Philly HS and her mom began working full-time for a publisher in Philly. They bought a house in Berwyn, PA, an affluent suburb, but Kaycee was never happy there. The adjustment was hard, and this is when she began to have increased anxiety issues.

· While she was in Philly, she had a lot of friends. The kids on her block played together riding bikes, playing stickball, and eventually going to parks and museums. In Berwyn, she never found a clique, but she was friendly with most classmates.

· Her hobbies included reading, she is an avid reader to this day. She also began ice skating on her grandparent’s frozen pond as soon as she could walk. Her Dad started taking her to public rinks in Philly. She was quite good and at one time considered competing; but her studies were too important to her, so she declined.

High School Kaycee

· Kaycee loathed the cliques and sports culture of high school.

· She threw herself into her studies and was determined to get into her dream college and become a doctor.

· She didn’t date, not because she wasn’t asked, she was asked a lot. She was focused on herself and, with the little spare time she had, she preferred to be with her friends or her cousins.

· She joined the debate team and joined track, mostly because she needed extra-curriculars on her college apps. Though she did enjoy performing in two high school plays.

· When it came time to apply to college, she was very nervous and her anxiety disorder started to get worse, her parents were always supportive and got her the help she needed.

· In the end, she was accepted to every school she applied to, including several Ivies. She chose to go to NYU because they gave her the largest scholarship and she absolutely loved NYC.

College Kaycee

· Being back in an urban environment was everything to her. She would spend hours walking all over; she wanted to explore and learn about every area in her new hometown.

· She usually studied on the lawn of Washington Square Park, even bundled up in the winter.

· Her love for musicals developed at this time and she found every possible way to get cheap tickets to Broadway plays.

· While she loved city life, she began to see the vast inequities that existed based on race, income level, sexual orientation, and gender. She was determined to be part of the solution and she volunteered for several organizations, especially ones that helped children and young people.

· She became an activist and learned about organizing and lobbying. This is how she met her first serious boyfriend, Tomas Sanchez.

· She met Tomas at a rally in Union Square, and they were immediately attracted to one another. They went to lunch after and ended up talking (and making out) until 2 AM the next day. They both attended NYU, and he was a grad student studying psychology. Both dedicated students who were also very busy with the causes they believed in, neither wanted a serious relationship, but they fell for each other hard. Just one month after meeting, they were exclusive and inseparable, and Kaycee all but moved into his Gramercy Park apartment. They were very much in love and thought they would end up married, but when he graduated 2-years later, he was offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in Los Angeles, and Kaycee knew her future was not there. They were both devastated by their breakup, but they remained friends, even to this day.

· After that, she swore off relationships in college and med school

Med School Kaycee:

· She was back in Philly and she was HAPPY about it. Once she got her acceptance to U Penn School of Medicine, she all but packed.

· She was a devoted student and a favorite of everyone who taught her. She was determined to make a difference in the world of medicine.

· She volunteered with a local charity that provided medical care to the homeless and those without the means to pay. This was the best experience of her life and will have a role in where her future lies after her residency ends. (More to come.)

· Kaycee still missed Tomas, and he still missed her. They tried having a long-distance relationship a couple of times, but they knew that would never work, so they stayed friends.

· She began to come to terms with her own sexuality at this time and came out as bisexual. Most of her family and friends were very supportive of her, and she considered herself blessed because she saw the horror stories some friends endured.

· In med school, she had two casual relationships, one with Jessica Phillips and one with Jeremy Jackson. Jessica was a fellow med school student, and Jeremy was an attending at a local hospital. They met while volunteering at the same clinic. In both cases, they cared for each other very much and had a lot of fun, but Kaycee and Jessica both wanted to keep it less serious. Both had been burned in past relationships, and they knew that their residencies would likely take them apart. Jeremy would have been happy to settle down with Kaycee, but he knew she was not in that place. She is still in touch (loosely) with both today.

· It was during this time that she became familiar with Dr. Ethan Ramsey’s work and decided she wanted to get into the elite residency program at Edenbrook in Boston.

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