St. Camillus de Lellis

A six-and-a-half-foot Italian soldier and inveterate gambler whose conversion came in his twenties when an incurable leg wound forced him to spend the rest of his life nursing others. He founded the Order of Ministers of the Sick — the Camillians — whose red cross worn on their habit became, centuries later, the international symbol of medical care.

Born in the Abruzzi in 1550 to a mother who died when he was a child, Camillus spent his youth as a mercenary soldier and compulsive gambler who twice lost everything he owned. His conversion began at a Capuchin friary, but it was in the wards of Rome's Hospital of San Giacomo — where he served as a patient and then as director — that he found his true vocation.

Ordained a priest at thirty-four under the guidance of St. Philip Neri, Camillus insisted that his brothers treat every patient as though tending Christ himself. He personally served the plague-stricken and the dying for decades despite his own chronic ailments. He died in Rome in 1614, and Pope Leo XIII declared him patron of the sick and of hospitals.