Christus Health father, son duo grateful to be partners

Anesthesiologist Dr. Peter Sirianni said not a day goes by that he isn’t excited to go to work at Christus Trinity Clinic Pain Management in Jacksonville — a place where he sees a familiar face quite often.

Not only does Dr. Peter Sirianni get to help his patients, Peter Sirianni is also working alongside his son, Dr. Christopher Sirianni, who followed in his father’s career foot steps to become an anesthesiologist as well.

“I love that I get to share the days with my son and teach him daily,” he said. “It’s a daily blessing.”

Christopher Sirianni said having a partner in his dad means he always has someone to have his back and trust.

The need for a partner grew along with the Jacksonville pain clinic, Peter Sirianni said. When the opportunity to make his son his partner came up, he couldn’t think of anyone better for the job.

“I get to see the future in his eyes because I won’t be able to do this forever,” he said.

Working in pain management with his father is something Christopher Sirianni said he always knew he was going to do. He was never pushed to pursue medicine, but watching his father envelop himself in it as a child made him want to do something he was equally passionate about.

The thought of becoming a fireman or an astronaut wasn’t a point of interest as a child, he said. From a young age, becoming a doctor is all that he wanted.

“I said, ‘If this is something you really want to do, you really have to love it because your good days on this job are better than any other job, but your worst days in this job are going to be worse than any other job,’” Peter Sirianni said.

Pushing a child into something can lead them to be unhappy, the father said. He never wanted his son to be unhappy, so he encouraged him to explore his options.

Christopher Sirianni said he admires his dad for setting expectations, and always being honest about life. He added his father never told him something was going to be easy if it wasn’t.

His dad instilled the idea of working hard for what he wanted into him, the younger Sirianni said. Peter Sirianni always helped him along the way, but wanted his son to know that accomplishing what you really want isn’t a simple feat.

“When I first told him that I wanted to be a doctor seriously, probably between junior and senior year of high school, his answer wasn’t, ‘Yeah, you can do whatever you want, do it,’” Christopher Sirianni said. “His answer was, ‘Are you sure? Because it’s a pretty hard lifestyle to get to and it requires a lot of work.’”

Christopher Sirianni’s parents had him at a young age, he said. They were both in college, and some of his earliest memories are of his father reading medical books and drinking coffee.

Peter Sirianni said his son would come to pre-medical chemistry classes with him, coloring-book in hand, and still leave remembering more than he himself did sometimes.

“He was so brilliant and absorbed everything, I was so inspired by how he welcomed the world,” the father said. “Nothing he ever learned was foreign to him or uncomfortable.”

From a very young age, he knew that his son was gifted, he said. He called getting to watch him grow up amazing.

Today, the father-son duo is on the cutting edge of what they do professionally, Christopher Sirianni said. Maintaining that professional level together has allowed for significant growth between the two.

Within only three or four years, Christopher Sirianni was able to reach a top level, and it’s because of his father serving as his mentor.

Working together was challenging at first, having to learn how to be a colleague instead of a dad. Not hovering over his son to make sure procedures were going well proved to be very difficult.

“I’m his dad after hours, but during work hours I’m his partner and his friend, and it’s really great,” Peter Sirianni said. “He inspires me daily with his abilities, within that first week I was confident he knew what he was doing.”

His father began helping the clinic grow from a small two-procedure-a-day clinic into the monolith it is today, said Christopher Sirianni. He watched his dad from when he was 14 years old to now, at 35, build the clinic into a place that provides quality care.

“The one thing I can say about my father is when he gets something he wants to do, he is fearless,” Christopher Sirianni said.

With a similar approach to medicine, working together as a team becomes easier for the father and son. They aren’t timid and they will explore options to make sure their patients are well taken care of.

Being father and son, they encourage each other to be pioneers in medicine, as well as learn and grow professionally, the younger Sirianni explained.

They are a team in everything they do, especially when it comes to helping a patient, Peter Sirianni added.

As a father, he has passed on three guiding principles for his son to live by, he said. It’s important to always take care of the patients, yourself and your team.

“Our philosophy is, ‘If you hurt, we’ll treat it,’” he said.

Both father and son said they are proud to see how the clinic has grown through the years. The clinic started out doing about one injection a week, and now sees 30 to 50 patients a day from all over.

The opportunity that Christus Health gave them to work together is something they will be forever grateful for, Peter Sirianni said.