As assistant third lieutenant in the Franklin Lakes Volunteer Ambulance Corps in New Jersey, Alec Massood received his most severe call this Winter Break when a man was run over by a garbage truck. Massood’s job, as lieutenant on scene, was to direct everyone — from firefighters to police officers.

He admits that it was weird at first to be directing people who are 50 or 60 years old, but said they all have respect for each other.

“It’s funny because in EMT school they teach you all the different worst-case scenarios and how to treat them, and this guy was literally every single thing you learned put together,” he said. “He had shattered bones, a collapsed lung, his heart stopped two times.”

Massood, a sophomore information management and technology major at Syracuse University, works on campus as a member of Syracuse University Ambulance. During summer and winter breaks, he continues his medical work back home in Franklin, New Jersey with Franklin Lakes Volunteer Ambulance Corps.

“Back home I typically run the calls, so I’m the one making the big decisions, whether it be for patient care or how to control a scene,” Massood said. “Here in SUA since I’m sort of new, I’m in the progression phase and I’m following along. But EMS is EMS wherever you go.”

Having doctors for parents made it hard for Massood not to be exposed to the medical world. When he was around 2–3 years old, his mother took him to work and he spent a lot of time around in her office. As a middle school student, he acted as a shadow around the hospital to get volunteer hours. When he was 16, he became a certified EMT.

But it wasn’t until he got to college and expanded on his EMT experience that he realized he wanted to work in the medical field.

“I like how in medicine, things are constantly kind of stressed,” said Massood, who wants to work as a trauma surgeon in an emergency room setting. “No case is ever the same, you could say.”

His leadership capabilities come from “growing up quickly.” When he was 10 years old, his parents had to move to Minnesota for six months for his father, who has a degenerative neurological disease. It was the only site that would be able to treat him, Massood said.

At that time, Massood took care of his little brother. Though they had a nanny and their grandparents around, Massood said for the most part, it was just the two of them. He added that he would even sometimes do his mother’s banking while she video chatted with him from Minnesota.

“Other sixth graders were doing normal stuff — I was trying to manage a household,” Massood said.

Massood said his biggest takeaway from that part of his childhood is his sense of independence, which translates into his work in SUA. Though he’s only been in the organization for a little over a year, he’ll be one of two personnel supervisors next year in SUA who are in charge of hiring new members.

Carrie Stith, a junior psychology major, joined SUA the same semester Massood did and will work with him next year as the other personnel supervisor. Stith said there’s one thing about him that stands out.

“He’s a very goofy guy and always laughing and making jokes, but he’s also really good at turning off being goofy and being serious,” she said. “He’s just really dedicated and knowledgeable about different scenarios.”

His mother, Supriya Massood, said her son’s personality allows him to thrive in faced-paced scenarios.

Supriya, who works as the medical director of a rehabilitation unit, called Massood “her rock” and said he’s been her sense of support for a very long time. SU, she added, was a great choice for him because it merges his interests in both technology and science.

“It was an interesting marriage between the iSchool and the EMT, and I wanted him to be in a field that he liked and that he had a natural set of skills toward,” she said. “It really wasn’t so much me, it was Syracuse that really did it.”

Though his parents never explicitly wanted or forced Massood to become a doctor, Massood credits them for his change of heart.

“I always loved seeing what they did,” Massood said. “I just never knew what they did completely, so I didn’t really care for it until I came into college. But I always had doctor in the back of my mind somewhere.”