Top Healthcare Entrepreneur Thomas Shields To Receive an Honorary Degree from UMass Boston

(Boston, MA) Thomas F. Shields, healthcare entrepreneur, will receive an honorary degree from the University of Massachusetts Boston at its commencement exercises held on Saturday, June 1 at the Bayside Exposition Center at 10:30 a.m.

Shields is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Shields Health Care Group, one of the most successful privately held diagnostic imaging companies in the nation. He launched in career in health care in 1972, when he and his wife, Mary Jane, opened Madalawn Nursing Home in Brockton, Massachusetts. In 1981, the Shields family opened the Brockton Dialysis Center; it quickly become the second-largest clinic of its kind in New England, and was later joined by a second dialysis center north of Boston.

When the new medical imaging technique called magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) began to replace such conventional modalities as X-rays and CAT scans, the Shields family sought to make this resource available to residents of areas south of Boston and opened Massachusetts’ first independent facility in 1986. Shields Health Care has now become the largest provided of MRI tests in New England. In addition to its eight MRI centers in Massachusetts, the Shields Health Care Group also operates the South Suburban Oncology Center, a state-of-the-art cancer facility in Quincy.

In addition to being a successful businessman, Shields is active in community affairs. He has served in various positions of leadership such as a trustee of Brockton Hospital, director of Brockton Health Corporation, trustee of Boston College High School, director of Cardinal Cushing School in Hanover, and director of the Massachusetts Federation of Nursing Homes. He and his wife, Mary, are significant donors to Nativity Prep of Boston and the Brockton Boys & Girls Club.

Since 1994, Shields has served as Chair of the Board of Trustees at Stonehill College. Upon stepping down as chair in July 2002, he will serve as a trustee emeritus of the college. In 1996, Temple Israel in Brockton honored Shields as one of “Brockton’s Best” and the Massachusetts Chapter of the National MS Society has recognized him as a corporate champion.

Shields received a B.A. degree in history from St. Michael’s College in Vermont in 1952, and holds an honorary degree from Stonehill College. Shields grew up in Weymouth. He and his wife, of 43 years, live in Boston. They are the parents of seven children and 18 grandchildren.

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