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26 May 2023«I was born, in Irpinia, in San Nicola Baronia, a village in the province of Avellino, but at the age of ten my parents had moved to Naples. My father a pharmacist who, after two children who had followed his own footsteps becoming pharmacist, wanted for my career only one thing, becoming a notary. I have to admit it, at school I was never the best. I always did just enough to get by. Once obtained the classical high school diploma, I diligently enrolled in the faculty of law. But after the seventeenth exam, I gave up because I fell in love with my wife, who, coincidentally, just started her pharmacy studies.
I could not ignore the strange coincidence that combined personal love, family traditions and passion in medicines. In Italy we say that there is no weapon against fate. I was meant to be a pharmacist and continue to pass the family tradition onwards. In fact we brought three children into the world, and of course they are all pharmacists, who in turn have also married – guess what? -, three colleagues in the same profession!
Pharmacy is a big business that is often handed down from father to son. Some worry that this profession is becoming more “commercial” and less professional. Carmine Petrone found a way to maintain the professionalism while focusing on commercial scales. The opportunity came by living in front of the sea he observed getting to know a Commander of the Italian Navy. He offered him to supply drugs and vaccines to his crews of freight ships that wandered between distant ports for months and months. But after some time, drug requests were incredibly high for the number of people on the ship. Suspicious and worried, Petrone got up and went from port to port to clear the mystery. He discovered that the medicines were sold onwards in the countries where the ship would ashore.
Why them and not me? He asked himself immediately. No sooner said than done. The debut took on an organic form of import-export during the early sixties and continues in full sails to the present day.
But Carmine Petrone is one of those who can’t stand still, in 1977, a friend suffering from a degenerative pathology, was operated in Naples but had to move to the United States for rehabilitation as there weren’t any in Naples. From the idea on rehabilitation, Petrone launched centers with many physiotherapists, speech therapists, orthoptists, specialist doctors, and researchers, which to date continue to raise the level of performance and treatments and to cure anomalies that until a few years ago condemned to invalidity. “Rehabilitation is the most beautiful profession in the world – he exclaims with conviction -.
“Do you know what my luck is? – and the smile becomes even more persuasive -. Having a wife who runs the elegant pharmacy in Via Calabritto and my three children who all work like crazy. My firstborn, for example, lives two hundred days a year abroad ». The face of a beautiful girl emerges from a large photo in his office: “She is my first granddaughter”. Guess what she is studying?
