Alumni on the Front Lines

We’re thankful for healthcare workers and first responders in this difficult time, and proud to have alumnae Dr. Eileen Mercurio ’03 (left) and her sister Dr. Laura Mercurio ’03 (right; both photos are from the 2003 yearbook) in our community. Daughters of doctors (their father is a cardiologist, their late mother was an ophthalmologist), the twins are both pediatricians specializing in hospitalist and emergency medicine, respectively. They both care enormously about helping people. 

 

Eileen is currently on the front lines in New York City’s Mount Sinai Beth Israel hospital. 

 

“Healthcare is a team effort,” Eileen says. “As doctors, we are fortunate to have had excellent training, but everyone on the team is essential, from the person who checks you in, to our nurses at the bedside, to our support staff who keep the hospital running. Hospitals are very much working together as a team during this challenging time to give our patients the best care. Everyone’s banding together. Everyone’s all in.”

 

Laura is completing a three-year fellowship in Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Brown University; she works with critically injured children at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Rhode Island. The healthcare community there is preparing for the coronavirus.

 

“It’s a defining time for all of us,” Laura says. “Our community is embracing this challenge, together. We all love what we do. When the COVID-19 wave hits, we’ll do our best to learn quickly, and – as they say in the Marines – improvise, adapt, and overcome. We’ll look at our team’s translatable skill sets and put them to work.”

 

It’s somehow not a surprise that the Mercurios won the highest award conferred by RCS as ninth graders in 2003 – the Rippowam Cisqua prize. Usually awarded to the one student who is outstanding in qualities of leadership, character, and general school citizenship, in 2003 it was awarded to both Eileen and Laura.

 

“I know I’m their dad,” Dr. Peter Mercurio says, “but they’re both great people, and great pediatricians.”