Page 30 - BusinessWest July 7, 2025

The Bartolucci brothers at their recent graduation at HCC.
And they are now both working at Baystate Medical Center as
apprentice nurses, on separate units, which will certainly help both
patients and co-workers, because these two are pretty much indis-
tinguishable except for slightly different hairstyles, Vin’s freckle, and
the different earring preferences. They even sound alike.
At Baystate, they are building on a family tradition of work in
healthcare — their stepfather, Brett Hayes, is also a nurse at Mercy,
and their sister, Lexie, who majored in public health at UMass
Amherst, will be pursuing a nursing degree at HCC in the fall.
“I think maybe we influenced her,” said Vin, who, like Joe, recalls
his mother taking the twins to work with her when she was on call
— because she had no one to leave them with — and being inspired
by what he saw and heard.
“We would sit in the recovery room,” he said. “My mom would be
working with the patients, and I saw how passionate she was and
how awesome a nurse she was, and that was the moment when I
said, ‘I can do this; I want to do this.’”
Joe, who tells a similar story, said he started at Baystate, again
as an apprentice, on a neurology unit.
“It was a challenging unit; it was a heavy unit, really sick patients
with declines, lots of rapid responses and code blues on that floor,”
he said, adding that he will soon move to a med-surg/telemetry unit
at Baystate Medical Center.
As for Vin, he started as a patient care technician on a med-surg
unit last August and is now a nurse apprentice on that floor. And,
like his brother, mother, and stepfather, he enjoys all aspects of this
work.
“The best thing is being the person that improves someone’s day
or makes a person’s day better,” he explained. “A lot of the people
that I see don’t really want to be in the hospital, so to make some-
one’s day a little better is the best feeling. And just to see someone
smile or say ‘thank you’ is a really good feeling, and it makes you
want to work harder.”
Joe concurred. “It’s a rewarding job, and it’s great to be able to
make a difference in someone’s day,” he said, “even if that difference
is making them feel a little cleaner or just talking with them and
hearing about their concerns.”
Meanwhile, having a brother that he’s still living with, who’s also
just starting his career and going through the same experiences, is
a unique benefit, he went on.
“It’s really good to have someone to bounce things off,” Joe said.
“Whether I have a good day or a bad day, I have someone to go to at
the end of the shift and talk to about things.”
Joe and Vin don’t sound like they’re done having fun confusing
people and assuming each other’s identity. But right now, they have
more important things to do — like getting entrenched in careers
they knew they were destined for while sitting in that recovery room
on those days their mother was on call.
When it comes to bringing the requisite passion to their work,
they’re doubling down — in all kinds of ways. BW
“It’s a rewarding
job, and it’s great
to be able to
make a difference
in someone’s
day, even if that
difference is
making them feel
a little cleaner or
just talking with
them and hearing
about their
concerns.”
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