Dr. Charles Catania attended The Philadelphia Center during the fall of 1998, interning at the Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania. He graduated from Hartwick College in 2000 and received his medical degree from the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine; trained in England; and completed residency at Underwood Memorial Hospital in Woodbury, New Jersey, where he was named Chief Resident in 2009 and served on the New Jersey Academy of Family Physicians Board of Directors as the Resident Delegate. He is a physician with Gateway Medical Associates in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

"Say 'yes,' because you'll do things you never thought you could do," advises Dr. Charles Catania. 

Catania, despite the tight requirements imposed by his home campus as a pre-med student, decided that it was important to learn how to live independently in a new city and decided that The Philadelphia Center was the place to do it.

"Coming to Philly was daunting, not having a place to live or knowing where you were going to work for the next few months...but then you meet people for the first time who are experiencing the same things as you, and it really is a bonding experience," recalls Catania. "There's a lot of courage and responsibility that you learn in three or four months. The program teaches you how to take calculated risks. And, throughout life, that's what it's all about."

As a student immersed in the traditional liberal arts curriculum as well as rigorous pre-med coursework, the classes at TPC were radical.

"The seminar I chose was Power & Authority and it was a very different experience for me. That one seminar opened my eyes to a lot of different things -- whether it was talking about your workplace, what your position is, how to hold your position, or talking about gender issues or homosexuality," says Catania. "And it helps me today. Even talking to patients and relating to patients, the things I learned in that seminar I wouldn't have gotten in any other course...my patients are comfortable because I can adapt."

And his work in clinical genetics at CHOP allowed him to make the connections necessary to thrive after he graduated from Hartwick, during his residency, and beyond. "I don't think I'd be a physician in this area, doing what I'm doing, without my experience at CHOP. I'm a family physician and it's a true family medicine experience. I go to the hospital to see patients, the nursing home to see patients, and with some of my elderly patients, I do home visits once or twice a month. I'm really your prototypical family physician. It's nice. I would not have seen myself doing this had it not been for my experience at TPC."

As many alumni may recall, a full TPC experience isn't all work and no play: "We tried new things, the stories! I was the mascot for the indoor soccer team, the KIXX. I was the guy who did that. I'd never do that anywhere else. I met the Philadelphia Eagles' Swoop and the Phillies' Phanatic."

Dr. Catania was SocceRoo.