About

Tejal grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, before UNC Chapel Hill, where she earned dual bachelor’s degrees in biology and Women & Gender Studies. Her path to medicine was shaped by experiences as a clinical informatics specialist, a birth doula, and health insurance counselor helping North Carolina families navigate Medicaid and Marketplace enrollment, work that deepened her understanding of how patients experience the healthcare system.

Drawn to internal medicine for its breadth, complexity, and emphasis on longitudinal, whole-person care, Tejal is particularly passionate about the care of older adults. As a Care of the Older Patient Scholar, Tejal has pursued research in geriatrics, incontinence medicine, and medical education, including qualitative work on learning environments and microaggressions that reflects her belief that the spaces students learn in matter just as much as what they learn.

As Medical Student Chief, she is excited to support students who, like her, took a nonlinear road to get here and to help make the IM clerkship a place where every student feels they belong!