Dr. Richard VerninoMy connections with Saint Vincent started at an early age. My father was the first of his siblings to attend college. When we would go to visit his family in Crabtree, we always made a visit to the monastery. We would stop in the kitchen to say hello to the Benedictine nuns. Then, it was off to the monastery to see the Archabbot and other monks who knew my father. Those visits were always so welcoming and pleasant.

Over those early years I found out that two of my uncles also attended the College. I really enjoyed the stories and escapades of their time at Saint Vincent. They knew that the College gave them the best education to prepare them for their professional health care careers. As a result, in high school, I knew that Saint Vincent was where I wanted to start my medical career, and the day that I received my acceptance letter I was so happy, and my parents, especially my father, were very proud.

I entered Saint Vincent in the fall of 1978 as a biology/pre-med major. During my four years at Saint Vincent, I had the opportunity to have many monks as my professors and learned so much from them—Archabbot Douglas Nowicki, O.S.B, Brother Norman Hipps, O.S.B., Father Joel Lieb, O.S.B., Father Owen Roth, O.S.B., Father Maximilian Duman, O.S.B., Father John Erickson, O.S.B.—just to name a few. These monks and their lay associates were GREAT instructors and role models and shaped my career in so many ways. Upon graduation, I went on to the University of Osteopathic Medicine in Des Moines, Iowa.

No matter what major a student pursued, we were family and supported each other in time of need. An example of that family spirit occurred when my mother died on a Sunday evening in March of 1981. My fellow hall mates kept one phone (cell phones did not exist then) unused on our floor so that I could use it for speaking to my family and friends back home. Since then I have continued to feel that family atmosphere. Today, after many years of practicing internal medicine, I love to return to the campus and spend time with the students. I have seen the College grow in many different ways, but that welcoming spirit remains the same.

So over the years of being associated with Saint Vincent, I made the decision to make sure that future students in the health sciences have the same opportunities, experiences and education that my father, my uncles and I had at the College.

The Vernino Family Scholarship is in honor of all of my family members, past and present, who have been and still are health care professionals. My father, Rocco, was a physician. My uncles, Daniel and Arthur, were dentists. Their wives were nurses. Two of my father's sisters became nurses. Two of my cousins are physicians.

To my fellow Bearcats, I just want you to think about your time at SVC and how it affected your lives and careers. Take the time to thank Saint Vincent, and maybe, just maybe, pay it forward!

Reflect upon the poem by Robert Frost, called The Road Not Taken, and relate its meaning to your days at Saint Vincent and how the College altered your life:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by.
And that has made all the difference.

Thank you Saint Vincent College.

—Dr. Richard Vernino