Helping families navigate serious illness

 

“Samaritan’s Life-Enhancing Care supports patients as early as diagnosis, guiding families to understand choices and providing support through palliative medicine, hospice care and grief support.”

 

John Bertagnolli, DO, came to hospice and palliative care through the front doors of his patients’ homes.

As a family physician, he made house calls long after most doctors had moved into offices and exam rooms. Inside homes, he saw patients and families carrying more than a diagnosis. They were managing symptoms and facing decisions that often felt overwhelming without the right support.

“I realized that while I was doing house calls,” he says, “I was actually giving end-of-life care.” 

Dr. Bertagnolli became certified in hospice and palliative medicine in 2008, when it was still an emerging specialty. He continued making house calls while training medical students, and in 2016, he joined Samaritan, which provides clinical expertise and compassionate care during every stage of serious illness and aging to families across South Jersey.

What began as a 1-day-a-week role at Samaritan kept growing. After retiring from full-time practice and teaching 3 years ago, Dr. Bertagnolli planned to keep it to one day. But the work pulled him back – first to 2 days, then he added Saturdays and now into the role of Chief Medical Officer.

“I failed retirement,” he says. “But it’s because I like what I do.”

At Samaritan, the care he had been providing intuitively in his house call days is supported by a full team. Trusted by South Jersey families for over 45 years, Samaritan’s Life-Enhancing Care supports patients as early as diagnosis, guiding families to understand choices and providing support through palliative medicine, hospice care and grief support. Physicians, nurses, home health aides, social workers and chaplains work together so care reflects a fuller understanding of what patients and families need.

“We have the time to listen,” Dr. Bertagnolli says. 

Through Samaritan Care Pathways, care can change as illness changes. The same diagnosis does not mean the same path, Dr. Bertagnolli says. Some patients want to keep pursuing treatment. Others are ready to focus on comfort. Some begin hospice, then realize they want to return to more aggressive treatment.

Donor-supported offerings such as music and art therapy, massage, pet therapy, veterans’ programs, social connections and grief support provide care for needs that extend beyond medicine.

For Dr. Bertagnolli, service has long been a part of life. He spent some 20 years volunteering in Kingston, Jamaica with Missionaries of the Poor, later bringing medical students with him as part of their training. He is also an ordained Catholic deacon and was honored in 2023 at the Diocese of Trenton’s White Mass, which recognizes compassion in the healing professions.

But his sense of purpose, he says, has been shaped most by his patients.

“If you listen, you’ll learn a lot from your patients,” he says.

In recent years, some of those patients have included the relatives of mentors and friends, and several mentors themselves.

“When a mentor entrusts me with the care of their loved one, and then entrusts me with the care of themselves, it gives me a sense that my calling to hospice has been blessed,” he says. “It’s where I’m supposed to be.” 

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