Portuguese 
Victor became known for getting accepted into medical school at 14. Ten years later, g1 showcased how the career of the Sergipe doctor was going.
Ten years after becoming nationally recognized for securing a place in Medicine at age 14, José Victor Menezes Teles had already turned his early acceptance into a career related to gynecology and obstetrics. In a report published by g1 on February 22, 2025, the Sergipe native shared that he was working at the maternity ward in his hometown, had participated in the births of just over 200 residents of Itabaiana, and was close to completing his medical residency.
The portrait is of that moment; therefore, it does not necessarily represent Victor’s professional situation in 2026. At the time of the interview, he also planned to open a medical center in Agreste de Sergipe alongside his fiancé, Catarina Fagundes, who is also an obstetrician.
Victor chose to stay in the town where he grew up
Even after an unusual university journey, Victor directed his career towards Itabaiana, the city in Sergipe where he had lived since childhood and where his family remained.
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In a conversation with g1, he mentioned that he had been working at Maternidade São José since graduating. Many of his patients were acquaintances or locals from the area who had followed his story since adolescence.
The doctor even kept a personal record of the births he attended, noting the name, date, and time of each baby. By February 2025, he estimated that just over 200 residents of Itabaiana had been born with his professional involvement.
This number created a contrast with the story that began a decade earlier. In 2015, the city celebrated the acceptance of a teenager into university. Ten years later, Victor was already attending to new families from his own municipality.
Gynecology and obstetrics gained significance after the pandemic
The choice of specialty occurred after one of the most challenging periods of medical training. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Victor worked for over 700 hours on the front lines before officially receiving his diploma.
This experience placed him among the 144 new doctors from the Federal University of Sergipe (UFS) who benefited from an early graduation in 2021, made possible by a federal ordinance. After this phase, he began working directly in gynecology and obstetrics.
Victor linked his choice to the losses witnessed during the pandemic. For him, being involved in the care related to the birth of new lives brought a different meaning to the profession. In February 2025, he anticipated completing his medical residency the following month, in March.
Medicine Also Brought Victor Closer to His Future Wife
The chosen specialty also had another personal impact. During a residency module, Victor met Catarina Fagundes. Their daily interactions brought the two closer, and they later became engaged, sharing professional activities as well.
According to his account to g1, the couple attended courses, performed surgeries, and worked shifts together. At the time of the report, they intended to expand this partnership into a new project: opening a medical center in the Agreste region of Sergipe.
This initiative signified a new phase for someone who entered university surrounded by questions about his age and, ten years later, was already planning to broaden his professional activities in the state.
Approval at 14 Years Old Stalled by High School
The obstacle faced by Victor in 2015 was not a refusal from UFS to accept such a young student. The problem was documentary. He had secured the seventh position for Medicine but still lacked the high school diploma, a necessary requirement to enroll in the program.
Victor explained that the legal action subsequently taken by his family did not seek to force the university to enroll him. The goal was to obtain permission for him to demonstrate, through assessments, sufficient knowledge to expedite his basic education completion.
Before the courts got involved, the teenager himself drafted a request addressed to the state secretary of Education of Sergipe. The request was denied. Following the administrative refusal, the family sought legal recourse.
A ruling authorized Victor to take proficiency assessments equivalent to high school completion. He completed 13 exams, including an essay. He passed the tests, received the necessary documentation, and was able to start Medical school.
The following year, he decided to participate again in the National High School Exam. This new attempt resulted in another approval for Medicine, this time securing second place. Reflecting on the episode, Victor joked that he repeated the same result to show that the first approval had not been luck.
Teaching Family Saw Other Children Interested in His Path
The family environment remained present throughout the story. Victor’s parents are teachers and have three younger children. According to the doctor, his siblings were influenced both by his achievements and by their exposure to his professional routine.
Nevertheless, Victor stated that he aimed to encourage each of them to carve out their own paths, rather than turning his journey into an obligation to be repeated.
Itabaiana remained a central point in this narrative. Located about 55 kilometers from Aracaju and with approximately 100,000 residents, the city witnessed Victor’s approval in 2015 and continued to show affection for the doctor years later.
At 14, his main concern was obtaining the necessary documentation to enter university. A decade later, he reported a routine of childbirths, medical residency, shifts alongside his fiancée, and plans to open a medical center in the interior of Sergipe.
Anticipation accompanied different stages of his education: it began with his early entry into UFS and reemerged upon graduation during the pandemic.
However, in that snapshot of 2025, the statistic that best reflected his journey was perhaps outside the university. Victor, who made headlines at 14 for gaining admission to medical school, had already recorded over 200 professionally supervised births in the very city where his story had begun.
With information from g1
