Honorary Degree Citation for Judith Salerno, M.D. ’73

As COVID-19 swept the globe in 2020, you emerged from retirement to live the words of Hippocrates: “Wherever the art of Medicine is loved, there is also a love of Humanity.” Guided by your lifelong commitment to treating those too often denied access to healthcare, you put your own safety and welfare aside to heed the call for retired physicians to take care of patients in need at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. Medicine infused with compassion, elixirs brewed with sympathy, encouragement extracted from the depths of despair, have been your contributions to medicine and to humanity throughout your career, but most of all in the long days of this seemingly endless pandemic.

On the frontlines with other first responders, you have worked in palliative care with the hospital’s intensive care unit teams. You have connected with patients and their families, ensuring that loved ones hear your voice when their grandmothers, grandfathers, mothers, fathers, or children are too weak to answer their calls. You have comforted family members, letting them know that the people they love most in the world have someone by their side—listening, diagnosing, treating, and helping them to heal. You have been more than a doctor; you have been a bridge to family members, easing their fears, and, when the unbearable tragedy of death confronts them, you have been there to bring compassion and comfort.

At the foundation of every healthy human relationship is trust. Your selfless service during the COVID-19 pandemic is the most recent example of your lifelong commitment to community and the collective good, of earning the confidence of your patients and co-workers by assuring them that you are strong, reliable, and caring. As the current President of The New York Academy of Medicine, as the past President and Chief Executive Officer of Susan G. Komen, and in the variety of medical and leadership positions you have held over the course of your career, you have been led by values grounded in empathy and you have walked with grace.

For your leadership and your rectitude, for your selfless days and nights providing care and hope and solace to those impacted by COVID-19, and for the love of humanity which guides your every step, Stonehill College is proud to bestow upon you, Judith Salerno, honoris causa, the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.