Waiting for the Pope’s arrival on November 5 at the Gemelli Polyclinic, Professor Rocco Bellantone tells how he and his students understand the profession. In his faculty experience: training with the surgeon of St. John Paul II, the pandemic and a path of shared values that also involves young people
Michele Raviart – Vatican City
The Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart is preparing next Friday to welcome Pope Francis who will celebrate the Holy Mass for the sixty years of the Faculty, inaugurated in 1961 by Pope John XXIII at the Policlinico Gemelli. The principal, the surgeon Rocco Bellantone, specialized in Endocrinology, talks about the expectation for this visit and reinterprets the professional path in the light of the values that distinguish the University:
Professor, how are you preparing to welcome the Pope?
Undoubtedly it is a great emotion. A devoted thought goes to the Holy Father who, with this visit, strengthens our great motivation for a university, a hospital that pursues Catholic principles and respect for the person even before his technical excellence.
You have spent your entire training and professional career within the Catholic University …
It is something that has marked my life. I arrived here, like many, more attracted by the enormous fame that the Catholic University and the Gemelli Polyclinic had and therefore with the hope of learning medicine well. Little by little I was then attracted and incorporated into this atmosphere of “principles” towards the person and which I must say have marked my entire career starting from when I was a student up to representing the faculty as its pro tempore dean. It has been a more than professional, wonderful journey of life.
You were a pupil of Dr. Francesco Crucitti, who was the surgeon of St. John Paul II. What memories do you have of that period?
It is the memory of the meeting with a great Pope, with a very great person. I was lucky enough to be next to my teacher in some of the interventions carried out on St. John Paul II and I was able to spend long moments next to this extraordinary figure. I must say that his journey through suffering has conquered all of us. Truly, for a while, Gemini has been the milestone that has led us more and more to understand that even in suffering, fundamental spiritual values can be made to triumph.
To date, after 60 years, how can we talk about this Faculty of Medicine in light of what is happening with the pandemic?
The pandemic was a dramatic challenge that revolutionized the hospital, but it really allowed an explosion of values perhaps unthinkable before. I must say that the whole structure, but above all our young people have responded in an extraordinary way and have ensured that the Gemini within a few weeks also changed its structure and dedicated an important part of it to Covid patients. I must say that the greatest satisfaction was having treated these patients well, but above all having had great acknowledgments on the humanity with which this was done.
You spoke of young people. A thought addressed to the students of his Faculty. Who I am? What history do they have? What are their dreams and their motivations?
I like to think that still today they have the same stimuli, the same motivation that I had over 40 years ago, when I took the competition for admission. They are a group, if you like, of “special people”, because entering the top 300 out of over 7000 candidates is certainly an indication if only of an important mental agility. But I like to think that beyond their skill in the quizzes, if not already motivated before, but once you get here, this curious and this passion for the neighbor who suffers takes over.
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