Chironian Magazine 2020

Page 58

Through Giving, Vincent Vigorita, M.D. ’76, Walks in His Father’s Footsteps

“I

come from a culture of giving,” says Vincent Vigorita, M.D. ’76, a generous and steadfast benefactor of New York Medical College (NYMC), whose $50,000 donation to the School of Medicine’s (SOM) 2018 Day of Giving was one of many gifts that he has made since graduation. Dr. Vigorita attributes his philanthropic mindset to the core values instilled by his parents, which were deeply ingrained in him and his three siblings. “My parents believed it was extremely important not to take anything for granted and to give back.” Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Dr. Vigorita attributes his actions to the deep concern for others that his parents modeled. “My mother gave her whole life selflessly and lovingly to her children and their friends,” he says. “But the most important reason for my giving to NYMC is to sustain the memory of my father who was an exceptional human being.” Dr. Vigorita’s father, John L. Vigorita, M.D. ’44, was a successful surgeon in private practice in Manhattan with his wife as his office manager. But he reached beyond a comfortable life and medical practice to contribute more. “Dad had a successful solo practice and four kids in college when, in the middle of his career in 1970, he got up and went to Vietnam as a volunteer physician for four months,” Dr. Vigorita recounts. “All of Vietnam was ravaged by war and needed doctors. My father could have been killed any day he was there, but he felt committed to helping people in distress. I was at Williams College at the time demonstrating against the war, and he was half-way around the world surgically removing shrapnel from injured Vietnamese civilians.” The example that his father set has influenced Dr. Vigorita’s every contribution to NYMC, and there have been many, most notably his 2018 Day of Giving donation—the campaign’s largest gift—which established the John L. Vigorita, M.D. ’44 Memorial Scholarship. He made a similar gift several years earlier, which named an examining room in the Clinical Skills and Simulation Center for his father. In addition, he and his wife Patricia hosted a NYMC SOM Alumni Association gathering at their Amagansett, New York, home in the summer of 2017. Dr. Vigorita sits on the SOM admissions committee and is a member of the Board of Advisors. Widely recognized for his clinical and academic achievements, Dr. Vigorita feels grateful for—and has given generously to—all of his alma maters, including Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn, where he was chair of the Board of Trustees for many years and Williams College in Massachusetts. He says, the experiences and education he received at each school played a significant role in helping him prepare for medical school. Yet, he expresses his deepest appreciation for the College. “NYMC gave me the opportunity to become a physician and I will never forget that.”

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C H I R O N I A N 2020

He credits his first-rate medical education at NYMC for propelling him into his residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and his fellowship at Memorial SloanKettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. “The education I got at NYMC was superb,” he says. “My clinical rotations at Metropolitan Hospital, Westchester Medical Center and Flower-Fifth Avenue Hospital were exceptional in the exposure it gave me to all types of patients and illnesses.” His professors at NYMC were also exceptional, he adds. “I quote many of them to this day when I give lectures,” says Dr. Vigorita, who is a professor of pathology and orthopaedic surgery at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, has published more than 90 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and whose textbook Orthopaedic Pathology (Wolters Kluwer) is in its third edition. His books have been reviewed favorably in The New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. Of all Dr. Vigorita’s gifts to NYMC, the scholarship in his father’s name holds particular importance, given the serious challenges that exorbitant medical school costs and debt pose to most students. “Undergraduates are already coming out of college with debt and face significant additional debt for medical school,” he notes. Yet, he is optimistic about the future of medicine and of NYMC. “I wouldn’t be actively engaged at NYMC if I thought the school was not focused on the right things,” he says. “I’m very pleased with what Dr. [Edward C.] Halperin has done with the College, including his efforts to increase diversity and his successful efforts illuminating the great history of the College, which includes moving beyond prejudices that discriminated against women, African-Americans, Jews and Italian-Americans like my father. The school is in solid hands with the Touro College and University System,” he says. Through his giving, Dr. Vigorita is delighted to support the College and future generations of physicians, and most importantly, to memorialize his father. “My wife and I feel very fortunate to have the means to contribute to NYMC in his memory.” ■


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