Lives Lost: Doctor taught a generation of Italian physicians

ROME (AP) — Every October, on the feast day of the patron saint of physicians, Dr. Roberto Stella would organize a simple ceremony at a tiny church in northern Italy to honor Italian doctors who had died that year in the line of service.

As a key member of the governing body of Italy’s general practitioners, Stella cherished the tradition at the Temple of Duno and invited colleagues from around the country to attend.

This year, it will likely be Stella who is honored at the chapel.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of an ongoing series of stories remembering people who have died from coronavirus around the world.

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A doctor and teacher who trained a generation of family practitioners in Lombardy, Stella now occupies a place of tragic distinction in the pandemic in Italy: the first name on the list of more than 150 MDs who died in the COVID-19 crisis.

He kept seeing patients even after his protective masks ran out.

Stella’s March 11 death shocked the Italian medical establishment, such that he was eulogized on live national television during the nightly civil protection briefing. But as more of his colleagues have died, it has also come to symbolize the plight of Italy’s family doctors, who were largely left on their own to tend to the first wave of COVID-19 patients at home as hospitals filled up.

“It was like the captain of doctors was hit,” said his longtime friend and colleague, Alessandro Colombo.

Lombardy’s family practitioners have lamented that they had virtually no clinical information to go on or guidelines to know when to admit patients, much less access to protective equipment that hospital personnel had.

Stella, 67, didn’t complain when his masks ran out — he just got on with it, Colombo said — but his death has nevertheless taken...