Mary Sekula worked as a nurse at Park Nicollet alongside Dr. Mario Petrini. She never forgot Petrini's words to her.
"He said to me, 'Mary, just always remember, you can heal a person, but you've got to remember that they have a soul, too, so you have to heal them body and soul,' " Sekula said. "And that's how he was. He treated people that way."
An OB-GYN and professor who practiced in Michigan, Minnesota and Florida, Petrini is remembered for the compassion he brought to his work and to everyday life. After a sudden decline in health, he died Aug. 1 at his home in Fort Myers, Fla. He was 92.
Mario Anthony Petrini was born March 27, 1927, in Detroit to Olga Valiani and Enrico Petrini, who emigrated from Italy to work in the city's automotive plants.
After serving in the U.S. Navy during WWII, Mario Petrini returned to Detroit and earned a medical degree from Wayne State University. He attended class reunions until late in life, and he was one of just a few 1952 graduates at the most recent get-together, said classmate Dr. Kouichi Tanaka.
Petrini completed residencies at Hutzel Women's Hospital in Detroit and Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. Andrea Petrini, his youngest daughter, said she never heard her father complain about work.
"He was an incredibly empathetic and compassionate person," she said. "He specifically went into the field of obstetrics, because for him, he found that to be such a joy because it was bringing new life into the world every single day."
Petrini's work as an obstetrician eventually expanded into gynecological surgery, women's fertility issues and human sexuality. He pursued postgraduate study including at the Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Ind., and as a doctor in Detroit — where he and his first wife, Valeria, raised their six children — Mario Petrini was an early provider of gender reassignment surgeries, Andrea Petrini said.
