{"id":112240,"date":"2016-05-03T14:27:32","date_gmt":"2016-05-03T18:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?post_type=school-college-post&p=112240"},"modified":"2016-05-03T14:27:32","modified_gmt":"2016-05-03T18:27:32","slug":"dr-hennesseys-opus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2016\/05\/dr-hennesseys-opus\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Hennessey\u2019s Opus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Alex
Alex Hennessey is the School of Medicine Class of 2016 commencement speaker. (Photo by Janine Gelineau)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Growing up, Alex Hennessey considered medicine somewhat of a lofty dream.<\/p>\n

It was a dream that could have gotten away from him altogether were it not for his pet rabbit.<\/p>\n

Hennessey was a music major at the College of Charleston, S.C. He studied pre-med, but it was music that garnered most of his attention. He was a theatrical musical director, wrote some scores, and even wrote an opera based on the Hippocratic oath<\/a> \u2013 an indication that medicine was still in his blood.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more I did the music stuff the more I just threw myself into that,\u201d Hennessey says. \u201cI sort of forgot about the medical thing, because the music was going so well.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when the bunny intervened.<\/p>\n

It was Fourth of July weekend 2010, going into his senior year at Charleston, when Hennessey noticed the family pet under medical duress. No local vets were open because of the holiday. Using his dissection kit from anatomy class, Hennessey intervened.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though this was more of a veterinary thing, it sort of got me back into thinking of surgery, emergencies, and dealing with these problems,\u201d Hennessey says. \u201cI found it very powerful. It was really fascinating to me, and I got into my mind that I wanted to do surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he returned to school, Hennessey took an emergency medical technician course, and after college, was a volunteer EMT in his hometown of Newtown. The UConn School of Medicine appealed to his desire to stay close to home.<\/p>\n

As a third-year student, Hennessey started working with the chief urology resident, Dr. Gerard Pregenzer.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been really amazing,\u201d Hennessey says of his mentor. \u201cSince I started my first urology elective, he\u2019s been a huge resource and an incredible source of support.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that same residency program Pregenzer is leaving this year is where Hennessey will continue his training this summer.<\/p>\n

Looking back at his medical school experience, Hennessey says he learned what tests his limits and how to push past what he thought his limitations were.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter how tired I was, or how much work there seemed to be to do, given the circumstances it was either sink or swim a lot of the time, and somehow I made it to this point, where I\u2019m graduating,\u201d Hennessey says. \u201cBetween the hours worked and the volume of things to learn, the fact that we were all able to do it is pretty phenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as for the group of future physicians he\u2019ll address at commencement?<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like this is a class that never made me feel anxious to keep up, or was so hypercompetitive that it was cutthroat,\u201d Hennessey says. \u201cI like that about our class. It was a really great environment of people to come up with.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alex Hennessey is medical school student speaker for UConn Health’s 2016 Commencement ceremony on Monday, May 9. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":112243,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1868],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[57,2010],"class_list":["post-112240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meds"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 05:41:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112244,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112240\/revisions\/112244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/112243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112240"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=112240"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=112240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}