A message from your President
Benvenuti a tutti!
I greet you with open arms, love, joy, gratitude, and a kiss on both cheeks to our Morgagni Medical Society of New York! I sincerely hope that during or after reading my message to you today, you will be motivated to either join for the first time or proudly renew your membership to our fine Society of Italophilic health care providers!
On a personal note, what brought me to the Morgagni Medical Society and has kept me here over a decade is the incredible opportunity to connect to my Italian American heritage and both befriend and benefit from my relationships with fellow Italian American health care professionals. We are truly a provider run organization in every sense of the word and have autonomy to explore our Italian American Heritage in the backdrop of one of America’s best locations to do so, New York City. This July I was able to cross over the Italian border in the Swiss Alps. In August I visited Mulberry Street in Little Italy and was able to stand next to my grandfather's family apartment and see his name for the first time, a surprise to our family, on a plaque honoring him as a Italian American World War 2 veteran. This experience made me appreciate how far I've come and that I only am who I am today due to the hard work and integrity and love of my family. There is a lot of pride in being an Italian American and learning about that identity and connecting to it. It is not easy to do this as a busy health care provider today! Having an Italian cultural heritage in your soul is both an adventure and great comfort to me and brings an undeniable energy to my daily work as a Pulmonologist and Critical Care physician at St Francis Hospital on Long Island.
We had an enjoyable and productive 2025-2026 year celebrating Italian collegiality and heritage through our six events and raised over $10,000 for our scholarship fund. We passed a significant change in our bylaws at our Spring meeting in May 2024, elevating all members with doctorates including podiatrists, to full membership status. We also voted to include allied health care professionals, NPs and PAs to our general membership. We now welcome all doctors, NPs and PAs of Italian heritage including those by direct descent, or either by virtue of marriage, education, or fellowship. The most important prerequisite for membership is your passion for Italian culture and your sincere interest in the scope and purpose of our Society!
So, what is our scope and purpose?
We primarily luxuriate all together for six scheduled events throughout the academic year to share in our collegiality in a festive environment enjoying fine Italian food and wine.
We kick off in the fall each September with our annual “New Member/Tombola” dinner social event where current members bring prospective new members to help promote our continued growth. This year we will meet at Il Bacco restaurant in Little Neck, Queens on Thursday, September 24, 2025, at 7pm where we will together enjoy excellent food and wine and play Tombola!
Every year we march together as our Society in the “Columbus Day Parade.” Yes, we have a formal march spot assignment in the parade often surrounded by music and marching bands. It is always a fun experience, especially when receiving warm smiles and applause from the 5th Avenue lined spectators. At the end of the march, we continue the celebration with a buffet lunch at the Columbus Citizens Foundation with whom we have a close working relationship. The parade this year is on Monday, October 13, 2025. Come march with us even if you are not members of our Society. All are welcome, your parents, grandparents, children, friends and even your pets!
On every first Wednesday after Columbus Day, we hold our annual “Fall Cultural” event which is held each year at a fine Italian restaurant or club rotating through a different NYC borough. We are always trying to explore all our wonderful boroughs and are committed to finding new venues and last year we enjoyed Cecconi’s in DUMBO, Brooklyn overlooking the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridge and the iconic New York skyline. We had a formal presentation on imported Italian Honey by author C. Marina Marchese. This year we will return to a fine restaurant in Manhattan on Wednesday, October 15, 2025, at 7pm. Currently the plan is for Il Cortile on Mulberry Street in Little Italy with a speaker from NYU Bioengineering Professor and MRI researcher Riccardo Lattanzi PhD and our own member Vincent Grasso DO MBA speaking on “The Ethics of AI”. Hope you can join us!
The highlight of our winter season is our annual festive “Gala” which is always held at the ornately holiday decorated Columbus Citizens Foundation in Lenox Hill, Manhattan. We celebrate our friendship with fine food, drink and live music traditionally provided for us by the Frank Carozza band. The “Gala” will be on Saturday, January 10, 2026, at 7pm. Mark your calendars!
In March we hold our annual “Opera Night” at the Columbus Citizens Foundation with fine dinner, drink and music followed by an opera performance of traditional Italian Opera performed under the auspicious guidance and narration by the former director of the Aaron Copeland School of Music at Queens College City University of New York, Professor Dr. Edward Smaldone. Always an outstanding and enjoyable performance! Our “Opera Night” will take place on March 14, 2026, at 7pm. Librettos provided! This is a fantastic opportunity to socialize with close colleagues in an intimate friendly setting and learn about opera and appreciate aspiring musicians honing their considerable craft.
We close our academic year with our annual “Spring Cultural & Business Meeting” event which is always held at the legendary former speakeasy, now private Italian dinner & gun club the Tiro a Segno in Greenwich Village where we mostly enjoy each other’s company, fine food and drink and do the required Society business of voting for new officers, emeriti, and committee chairs. We always have a guest speaker to talk on pertinent topics of interest to our members. At our meeting in 2024 we had Dr. John Romanelli Professor of Surgery at Baystate Medical Center, speak with us about physician wellness and resilience. This past season we hosted the outgoing Executive Director of the Columbus Citizens Foundation Lisa Ackerman speaking about her passion for Italian Cultural Influence with respect to architecture. Both were very informative and topical presentations, which were well received and appreciated by all. After cocktails, dinner, and wine all are invited to shoot 22 caliber rifles in the basement shooting gallery. The “Spring Cultural & Business Meeting” will be held on May 13, 2026, at 7pm. When in the gallery we are supervised closely!
That is the scope for the upcoming year, and the following years will follow the same traditional schedule. All members and their guests are welcome at our Society events. Dues paid by members get a significant discount on all events, considerably below our cost. Guests pay at a fee commensurate with our expense for the event.
Beyond enjoying our Italian culture and heritage through our events we also have an important purpose! And that is to choose a highly qualified medical student of Italian descent each year and award her or him a $2500 scholarship annually over 4 years’ time a total of $10,000 from our Society. Additional funds from the Columbus Citizen Foundation, our partner in the administration of the scholarship, make this more substantial bringing the award up to $12,500 annually. We are entering our 10th year of the “Morgagni Medical Student Scholarship Fund” and are fully funded to this point due to the generosity of our members and supporters, especially the Columbus Citizens Foundation which contributes generously to our fund. We depend on your generosity to keep this Scholarship funded so if you are inclined to help, please visit our Scholarship donation page at this website, and give whatever you can. Every donation small or large helps! We are happy to enjoy IRS 501-C3 charitable status, so all your donations are tax deductible. Our goal is to have past winners become contributing Morgagni Society members and are the seeds for our continued growth. It is crucial to develop our younger membership to ensure the continued success of our Society.
I hope my message brings clarity to you about our scope and purpose and encourages you to take part. As I write now, I reflect on what Giovanni Battista Morgagni himself would feel about our Society and if he would join? We are proud and honored to bear his prestigious name. But would he be proud of us?
Giovanni Battista Morgagni (February 25, 1682 – December 6, 1771) was an Italian anatomist, generally regarded as the father of modern anatomical pathology, who taught thousands of medical students from many countries during his 56 years as Professor of Anatomy at the University of Padua. He enjoyed unequaled popularity among all classes. He was of tall and dignified figure, with blonde hair and lilac eyes, and with a frank and happy expression, and he was noted for the elegance of his Latin style. He lived in harmony with his colleagues, who are said to not even to have envied him his unprecedently large stipend; his house and his lecture-theatre were frequented tanquam officina sapientiae (like a workshop of wisdom) by students of all ages, attracted from all parts of Europe; he enjoyed the friendship and favor of distinguished Venetian senators and of cardinals; and successive popes conferred honors upon him. (Morgagni GB, October 1903. “Founders of Modern Medicine: Giovanni Battista Morgagni. (1682-1771)” Med Library Hist J. PMC 1698114. PMID 18340813. Creighton 1911, p. 832)
Clearly Morgagni was an accomplished anatomist known today for the many eponymous structures named after him such as the: “Aortic Sinuses of Morgagni,” “Columns of Morgagni,” “Foramina of Morgagni,” “Morgagni Cataract,” “Hydatid of Morgagni,” “Morgagni’s Hernia,” “Morgagni Stewart Morel Syndrome,” “Sinus of Morgagni” (pharynx). But his love for the elegance of Latin style and his dedication to teaching and mentoring his many students embodies the scope and purpose of our Society that proudly bears his name. So, we enjoy our collegiality through our events, and we support the education of our students through our Scholarship Fund.
I close by thanking all our past Presidents and our Council members for their leadership and their continued support through their participation in our Society, especially our immediate past President Dr. Ronald D’Agostino and our upcoming Secretary/Treasurer Dr. Frank Manetta who have been prodigious in their work and dedication to our Society. They have my deepest gratitude! It most certainly takes a commitment from collegial likeminded providers to allow our society to be joyful, upbeat, and thriving!
Thank all of you for taking the time to read my message to you. Please join us today and donate generously!
Ci vediamo a Settembre!
Michael V. Como M.D. FCCP