Photo caption: Michole Pignato with Dominic (left) and Rocco Pignato.

Michole Pignato, a teacher, credits St. Luke’s physicians with saving her life when an artery in her brain was on the brink of rupture.

Pignato, 43, of Northampton, was out to dinner with her teenage children when, after feeling a snap in the back of her neck, the room seemed to spin. She couldn’t stand or walk without assistance. She went to a hospital (not St. Luke’s) and for more than a month, she struggled with recurring symptoms.

That’s when her friend Dr. Francis Burt, who happens to be a doctor at St. Luke’s, urged her to seek a second opinion at St. Luke’s – specifically, from neurologist Dr. Daniel Ackerman, the Network’s Interim Chief of Neurology.

Dr. Ackerman saw her very quickly, and he immediately identified an arterial dissection, or tear. He then referred her to St. Luke’s neurosurgeon Dr. Martin Oselkin. Upon review of her scan, Dr. Oselkin called Pignato the same day and urgently instructed her to check in for surgery. He performed the procedure the following day, placing two stents to repair a pseudoaneurysm, a potentially life-threatening condition involving blood collection inside of a vessel wall that can lead to rupture.

Her operation was on Nov. 15, 2023. While she did make a full recovery, her strokes left her with challenges such as learning how to read again and regaining ability to use her left hand. Miraculously, she was back in the classroom just a few weeks later, shortly after Thanksgiving.

This month, the American Heart and Stroke associations nominated Pignato to participate in the Go Red for Women movement’s 2025 Woman of Impact fundraising competition. For more information, go to http://www2.heart.org/goto/donatetomichole.

“This experience made me realize that strokes—and heart disease—don’t discriminate,” she says on her fundraising webpage. “They don’t care if you’re fit, active, or take care of yourself. They can hit anyone, at any time.” She wants to use her experience as a platform to advocate for women, especially young moms, to make time to take care of themselves mentally and physically.

 

About St. Luke’s

Founded in 1872, St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network of more than 20,000 employees providing services at 15 campuses and 350+ outpatient sites. With annual net revenue of $4 billion, the Network’s service area includes 11 counties in two states: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. St. Luke’s hospitals operate the largest network of trauma centers in Pennsylvania, with the Bethlehem Campus being home to St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital.

Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke’s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. In partnership with Temple University, the Network established the Lehigh Valley’s first and only four-year medical school campus. It also operates the nation’s oldest School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 52 fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with more than 500 residents and fellows. In 2022, St. Luke’s, a member of the Children’s Hospital Association, established the Lehigh Valley’s first and only free-standing facility dedicated entirely to kids.

SLUHN is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system to earn Medicare’s five-star ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency, and patient satisfaction. St. Luke’s is a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades Top Hospital and a Newsweek World’s Best Hospital. The Network’s flagship University Hospital has earned the 100 Top Major Teaching Hospital designation from Fortune/PINC AI 10 years in a row, including in 2021 when it was identified as THE #1 TEACHING HOSPITAL IN THE COUNTRY. In 2021, St. Luke’s was also identified as one of the 15 Top Health Systems nationally. Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of SLUHN’s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information.

 

Information provided to TVL by:
Sam Kennedy