When he grew up he wanted to be a gastroenterologist but Manfredi Saja, a young man from Palermo died in a car accident in September, he was already a doctor. Despite his 29 years and a missed graduation one mile from the finish due to a tragic fate, the gown was worn from birth. Because to be doctors you need the titles, it is true, but also the stuff and the heart. For this reason the university has decided to give him the honor of “meritorious of the university”. Because as a simple medical student, Manfredi had already made himself noticed with his polite and always attentive manner, with a marked intuition. Essential but not obvious qualities for those who choose this path.
So in the Maurizio Ascoli hall of the Policlinico the ceremony that gave him the title was celebrated. “He would have graduated in this session, he was one step away from the finish line. The medical community – he tells PalermoToday the mother, Patrizia Lo Verso – is very large. For this reason, the coordinator of the degree course in Medicine and Surgery, Giuseppe Gallina and also Professor Antonio Carroccio, supervisor of Manfredi’s degree thesis, wanted to reaffirm their solidarity with our family. Give these guys some recognition (the honor was also given to Gabriele Di Liberto, another medical student who died prematurely ed) to their work, their study and their commitment “.
An atrocious fate that broke a life but also a dream. “Unfortunately, over the years there have been various cases such as that of my son or Gabriele Di Liberto, but also of many others. Manfredi – continues his mother – had already prepared his degree thesis, an experimental thesis on kidney ultrasound. his supervisor, Professor Carroccio, was very moved to remember him. The same day in which the accident occurred, Manfredi had taken the last exam with Professor Gallina. The subject, ‘Sense organs’, had brought home with a 28. It is a tragedy that has shaken not only our family but the entire scientific community “.
Manfredi was born to be a doctor. “And it is not just the opinion of a mother. Professor Carroccio, who recalled this, told how in a particular way Manfredi – explains Patrizia – was born to wear a gown. He appreciated the clinical approach, the intuition which is necessary for a doctor. My son had all this. And then they all remembered how he was a decent boy, with an out of the ordinary education and manners. I say it as a mother but it is the synthesis of all the things I have heard say about my son “.
Sacrifice and self-denial were a constant in his life. “I come from a family of doctors. I was happy – concludes this mother – that he continued this type of studies. When he started doing internships and came into contact with the sick he was really enthusiastic. For him, medicine was not just a mnemonic study. , it wasn’t just deepening. It was contact with the patient “. Now the memory of Manfredi, a lover of the environment, nature and the sea, passes from an arbutus tree planted in the health garden at the Foro Italico where, with the approval of the Botanical Garden, the planting in his memory took place. But also from a multipurpose room for young people in Congo, to which the Saja family made a donation. A way to keep him alive, not to forget the doctor he would have been but who basically already was.
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