JOSE PaltAn

1913 - 2018

PALT��N Dr. JOSE DAVID PALT��N Dr. Jose David PaltÁn of Bethesda, MD, whose anatomy textbooks educated generations of Ecuadorian high school and university medical students died November 13, 2018 at the age of 105 in Bethesda, where had lived since 1987. Dr. PaltÁn was born in 1913 in Riobamba, Ecuador, three months after his father died. His mother died when he was 20. He put himself through Ecuador's Central University medical school on scholarships, graduating at the top of his class in 1941. He taught anatomy to medical and dental students at the Central University and at a public high school in Quito for several decades. He also had a private practice and was the official doctor for bullfights and circuses in Quito. He did not charge his private practice patients if they could not afford to pay his fee. He published a high school textbook on anatomy, physiology and hygiene in 1950. In 1962, he wrote and illustrated a university anatomy textbook published in 1962. These two books and subsequent editions over the decades educated generations of Ecuadorians students about the human body. Dr. PaltÁn was soft-spoken but often feared by his students as a very strict professor who never raised the grade of any student, even when pressured by politicians and the wealthy. Most students who took his course never forgot him and he seldom failed to recognize his former students even years later. He retired in 1970 to teach anatomy to dental students at the University of Pittsburgh until his second retirement in 1984 as professor emeritus. He and his wife moved to Bethesda, Maryland in 1987 to live near their eldest daughter, where he continued to revise his textbooks. His wife died of leukemia in 1991. In 1997, he was bestowed Quito's highest civilian honor for his service to medicine and science in Ecuador. Until the age of 98 he walked a mile a day. Dr. PaltÁn is survived by three children, Dr. Luz Mangurian of Santa Rosa, CA, Dr. Jose David PaltÁn-Ort��z of Bethesda, MD, and Amalia PaltÁn of Pittsburgh, PA, seven grand children and ten great grand children. Family and friends will be received at PUMPHREY'S BETHESDA-CHEVY CHASE FUNERAL HOME, 7557 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20817 on Monday, November 19 from 4 to 7 p.m. Mass of Christian Burial will be offered at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, 7500 Pearl Street, Bethesda, MD 20817 on Tuesday, November 20 at 10 a.m. Interment Mt. Zion Cemetery, Bethesda, MD. Please view and sign the family guestbook at: www.pumphreyfuneralhome.comwww.pumphreyfuneralhome.com