STRATFORD – As the recipient of this year’s Saint Luke Award, Dr. John Bertagnolli Jr., D.O., shared the important tool he always keeps in his medical kit.
“I’ve always practiced … with faith,” he said. “I’m blessed to be a physician and a deacon.”
With priests, chaplains, fellow deacons, health care professionals, medical students and family in attendance, Dr. Bertagnolli was honored during the annual White Mass, celebrated Oct. 22 in Saint Luke Church, Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish Shrine. The White Mass, which recognizes health care professionals and their commitment to serving the local community, is typically held near Oct. 18, the feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist, patron saint of physicians and health care workers.
Board-certified in family medicine and hospice and palliative care, Dr. Bertagnolli is a team director at Samaritan Healthcare & Hospice in New Jersey, and a recently retired professor of family medicine at the Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine. He also has a long history of missionary medical service, working with those in the poorest areas of Jamaica.
Dr. Gerald Burke, president of the South Jersey Catholic Medical Guild of the Diocese of Camden, presented the Saint Luke Award, calling Dr. Bertagnolli a “a real inspiration … who is a Catholic first and a doctor second.”
Father James King, spiritual adviser for the South Jersey Catholic Medical Guild, celebrated the Mass. Concelebrating were Father Jack Bogacz of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Moorestown, which is Dr. Bertagnolli’s parish; Father Varghese Srambickal,VC, priest chaplain at Cooper University Hospital, Camden, and Father Marsianus Maksimus Leu, priest chaplain at Shore Medical Center, Somers Point. Deacon Joseph Janocha, director of hospital chaplaincy for the Diocese, and Deacon Jerry Jablonowski, diocesan liaison for the Guild, assisted. Deacon Jablonowski is also executive director of VITALity Catholic Healthcare Services Diocese of Camden, which sponsored the event.
As homilist for the day, Deacon Jablonowski called the occasion an opportunity “to celebrate those who have responded well to their vocational call to use their God-given skills, talents and abilities to serve those in need of healing and care.”
Referencing the day’s Gospel where Jesus exhorted all to “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God, what belongs to God,” he urged all health care workers to remember that amidst a culture of medicine that only attributes the elimination of illness to medication, procedure technique or lab analysis, the “true Christian physician knows that a power beyond the science is the reason for the healing. Our God, who created the science and who created the minds to discover the science, is truly the force within the healing.”
“We must render the fullness of healing to the power of God, the creator and lover of life,” he continued.
As well, he urged all to realize that “faith and science are not mutually exclusive, [but] complementary realities within our world.”
The “physician, nurse, therapist or technician who comes to embrace this understanding and practices their art accordingly,” Deacon Jablonowski said, “will come to know that they are the hands, the eyes and the mind of Jesus alive in the world today.”
Around 50 individuals were on hand at Saint Luke Church to meet and congratulate Dr. Bertagnolli, including friends and medical students.
Dr. Thomas Cavalieri, a past Saint Luke Award recipient and dean of the Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine, senior vice provost of the Virtua Health College of Medicine and Life Sciences of Rowan University and chief academic officer of Virtua Health, remarked that his friend and colleague of 20 years has “always brought Catholic values to the practice of medicine. At this time, with some of the challenges we face in regard to the loss of respect for human life, he really represented somebody who valued the sacredness of human life in providing excellent care.”
“He’s a very worthy recipient,” Dr. Cavalieri said.
After the liturgy, a reception followed in the parish hall. Among those in attendance were second-year medical students of the Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine.
“It’s reassuring that there are others with the similar [faith] mindset, achieving things that I hope to be doing,” said Anthony DiPalma, of the Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine and president of his school’s student chapter of the Catholic Medical Association.
He has an interest in otolaryngology.
Mary Zsolway, vice president of the CMA chapter of Rowan-Virtua SOM, is interested in pediatrics. She said she appreciated the chance to celebrate Dr. Bertagnolli, whom she called “a great figure in medicine and faith.” She said she looked forward to introducing herself to the honoree, and “asking him about his mission work, and how our chapter can get integrated with that.”
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