Joseph K. Eshleman

July 21, 2010

Joseph K. Eshleman, D.O., 67, died peacefully July 21 at Schuylkill Medical Center, Pottsville, as a result of a recent severe illness.

He was born in Philadelphia and grew up in East Berlin. He graduated from Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown in 1964 and from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in Philadelphia in 1968. He interned in York and practiced family medicine in Wellsville for a few years before returning to Philadelphia for a residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Pennsylvania. He was Board Certified in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in 1978. He later became the director of Physical Medicine at the Veterans Hospital of Philadelphia, was an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and a member of the clinical teaching faculty of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.

He relocated to Pittsburgh in 1990 where he continued practice as the director of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at St. Francis Hospital while remaining on the faculty of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. A disabling stroke in 2001 left him unable to practice his beloved profession. He spent the remaining years prior to his death in convalescence at Providence Place in Pottsville.

Dr. Eshleman was a true practitioner of the healing arts, dedicated to his patients in every way and a true friend, teacher and mentor to his medical students and residents.

He is remembered in sorrow and love by his patients and friends and by his siblings, John K. Eshleman, D.O., of New Hope, James E. Eshleman, D.O., of Norway, Maine, Martha Jane Weiser of York Springs, May Ellen Stough of York, and by his children, Joseph David Eshleman of Schuylkill Haven, Stephanie Jane Wakeman of Philadelphia, and Daniel Laughlin Eshleman of Pittsburgh.

Donations may be made in Dr. Eshleman's memory to the Student Scholarship Fund of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, 4170 City Line Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19131. Nissley Funeral Home, Mount Joy, had charge of arrangements.