Logan Health internship honors beloved neurosurgeon

Five years after his death in 2016, Dr. Peter Sorini continues to help shape the lives of promising young medical students.

Established by the Logan Health Foundation shortly after Sorini's death, the Peter M. Sorini, M.D. Educational Endowment provides two students with an internship each year, providing the opportunity to experience clinical neurosciences and aiming to inspire future careers in the field.

A talented neurological surgeon who advanced clinical neurosciences in Montana for more than 20 years, Sorini established a practice at Logan Health Medical Center, then known as Kalispell Regional Medical Center, in 1995 before moving to his hometown of Butte in 1998, where he practiced before finishing his career in Anaconda.

Always looking for new ways to help others, Sorini served as a colonel in the Army Reserve with deployments to Germany and Iraq and also volunteered in Haiti after the earthquake there in 2010.

Sorini died of a self-diagnosed malignant brain tumor in February 2016, but his legacy of patient care and community service is honored with the educational endowment, thanks to donations rom medical staff at Logan Health Neuroscience & Spine.

"The internship was established to honor the best of what Montana has to offer, which was epitomized in the character and person of Peter M. Sorini, M.D. Peter was my friend, a man dedicated to his family, profession and country," said T.C. Origitano, a physician executive for Logan Health Neuroscience & Spine who helped launch the internship.

"The internship honors his ongoing legacy and commitment to advancing the art and science of medicine through education and curiosity," Origitano said.

THE FIRST two internships were awarded in summer 2017 to Sorini's daughters, Giovanna and Marietta Sorini, who spent six weeks exploring the neuroscience field while walking the same halls their father had two decades earlier.

For Giovanna Sorini, who is studying to become a physician assistant at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and Marietta Sorini, who recently graduated from Carroll College, the internship was a way to step into their father's shoes and learn what his daily life at work was like.

"When we were growing up, we would always hear stories about what Dad's work days were like, but we never got to see it and experience it until the internship," Marietta Sorini said. "It was quite a learning experience for us."

Giovanna Sorini added that "having done the internship and seeing everything our dad did during a work day, looking back I don't know how he had time to fit in everything else he did after he got home. He was always there for his patients, but he was also always there for us. Hearing stories about him from people we didn't know and seeing the impact he had on the people in Kalispell was very cool."

THIS YEAR'S interns, Kalispell native and Montana State University student Colton Becker, and Whitefish native and Santa Clara University student Lindsey Matulionis, both applied after hearing about the program from 2019 intern Mariah Drown.

"The more neuro classes I took as an undergraduate, the more I found that I really had an interest in it. It fascinated me. I focused a lot of my undergraduate studies on neuroscience and this internship will give me the opportunity to see the different aspects of it in practice," Becker said. "It was great to finally get to sit in on neurosurgery, but it was also fascinating to see how all of the clinics are applying neuroscience in different ways. I just wanted to be a sponge and soak up as much information as I could every day that I was able to be here."

For Matulionis, who spent as much time as she could during high school shadowing professionals at Logan Health North, formerly North Valley Hospital, the internship is an opportunity to learn about the one aspect of the hospital she isnt yet familiar with.

"I think I have learned more about neuroscience during this internship than I have in my undergraduate work," Matulionis said. "It has been a great experience, and I hope to be able to pull as much out of it as I can."

Sorini's daughters are proud to see that commitment honored by the foundation that bears his name. He was known for doing as much as he could to help further the education of those interested in the medical field, they noted.

"It's heartwarming to know that Dad is still able to touch so many lives. It makes us happy to know that his life impacted so many others in such a positive way," Marietta Sorini said. "He would be honored and proud to know that this internship is in place to help kids get into the medical field."

Reporter Jeremy Weber may be reached at 406-758-4446 or jweber@dailyinterlake.com.