Mentor recalls Ketunuti's selfless nature

WHEN ONE of Melissa Ketunuti's patients would mispronounce a word, instead of correcting it, the pediatrician would take on the mispronunciation.

"She would actually acquire the mispronunciation as a way to make the person more comfortable," said Paul Offit, chief of the infectious diseases division of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, who mentored Ketunuti. "She was that thoughtful."

Within a year, Ketunuti, 35, was to travel to Botswana to live out her life's dream of working with children who suffer from AIDS, Offit said. But on Monday, that promise and dream were ripped away when, police said, an exterminator whom Ketunuti called for a rodent problem at her Center City home bound and strangled the young woman before setting her body on fire.

Jason Smith, 36, of Levittown, has been charged with Ketunuti's murder and is being held without bail.

Offit recalled Ketunuti as a bright, clear-thinking doctor committed to honing her craft and using her intellect to give back to the world.

"To go to a developing country to work in a situation where you don't nearly have the resources to make your life easier, personal and professional life, was a tough choice," Offit said. "It's such a contrast between her personal style [of being] very soft-spoken and very gentle, and yet to make that kind of choice shows a certain steeliness to her will."

Ketunuti's family released a statement Friday through a college friend of Ketunuti's, expressing devastation at the "senseless act of violence that has ended the life of someone who was so loved, cherished and admired."

The violence that stole the young physician's life will have an impact on others - and not only in Philadelphia, Offit said.

"She wanted to make a difference . . . There are children in this world who will never know this," he said. "There are many children who will suffer her loss."