RJ Petrella

Physician | Scientist | Writer

RJ Petrella is a physician, scientist, and writer who has been practicing emergency medicine for over thirty years. He was born in Providence, R.I., the son of Italian immigrants, and grew up in the city’s West End before his family moved to Cranston when he was a teenager. He attended Yale University where he majored in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, and later earned his MD degree from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NY after a one-year immunology research fellowship in Japan.  He completed the medical residency training program at Boston City Hospital in 1993 and then began his practice of emergency medicine in the Boston area.

Petrella has been practicing EM at hospitals in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ever since. He holds a board certification in internal medicine (ABMS) and a clinical certification in emergency medicine (AAPS). In addition, he has conducted research in computational biophysics at Harvard University for many years, mostly in collaboration with his scientific mentor, the late Martin Karplus (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2013). He completed post-doctoral research fellowships granted by the American Cancer Society, Novo-Nordisk, and the Eppley Foundation. He is the author of many scientific and clinical articles, numerous editorials and op-eds, and a novel entitled Days of the Giants (Wide Yard, Inc.), which was nominated for several awards, including the Eric Hoffer Award in e-book fiction in 2015. He has been a clinical or part-time instructor at Harvard Medical School for over 20 years.  He is married and has three grown children.