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Women’s Health Expert Dr. Bernard Eskin Has Died
OB ITUARY
ANDY GOTLIEB | JE MANAGING EDITOR
DR. BERNARD “BERNIE”
Abraham Eskin, whose medical
career as an OB-GYN included
teaching and research into
women’s health, died Dec. 29. He
was 92.

“He felt very strongly that
women had the right to control
their bodies and have appro-
priate health care,” daughter
Catherine Eskin said.

A just married Eskin
arrived in Philadelphia in 1955
from Albany Medical College,
interning at Einstein Medical
Center Northern Division,
where he was the first man to
get a residency in OB/GYN at
the Women’s Medical College
of Pennsylvania.

“He felt like he should learn
Dr. Eskin conducts research.

Bernie and Lynn Eskin
Photos courtesy of Catherine Eskin
women’s health from women,” institution and its successors
Catherine Eskin said.

for 63 years — teaching as a
He remained with the professor of obstetrics and
gynecology at Women’s Med,
Medical College of Pennsylvania
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(renamed after it admitted men
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School (after a 1993 merger) and
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Drexel University College of
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Medicine (after a 2003 merger).

Throughout his career, he was
an active researcher, studying
the breast and breast cancer,
and served as lead researcher on
studies that advanced research
and clinical applications of
His Torah has been a blessing and an
iodine and related treatments.

inspiration for us at Adath Israel and for
Later research focused on
the way medical practitioners
GROUNDBREAKING OF THE
countless people in the Greater Philadelphia
treated aging in women.

TUTTLEMAN CHAPEL, 1990
He wrote the first textbook,
Jewish Community and beyond.

which is still widely used, on
menopause and discovered
what he called “geri-pause” —
a shift in hormones that occurs
after menopause is completed.

Catherine Eskin said his
father’s research interests
dovetailed with the physical
experiences of his wife Lynn
over the years.

Eskin was a member of the
Philadelphia County Medical
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Society and Pennsylvania
Medical Society for 64 years, as
250 N. Highland Ave. Merion Station, Pennsylvania 19066
well as a member of the PCMS
610-934-1919 | info@adathisrael.org
board of directors and a delegate
Adath Israel mourns the loss of
our beloved Rabbi Emeritus,
Fredric Kazan z”l.

May his memory continue to be
such a blessing and an inspiration.

A virtual memorial tribute will be held on
February 3, 2021 at 7:00 PM.

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to the PMS House of Delegates,
according to Eileen Ryan, the
PCMS director, membership
and programming.

He received the PCMS
Cristol Award in 1999, “which is
given to a physician member for
their dedication and exceptional
contribution to the Society,
furthering and enhancing
the educational, scientific and
charitable goals, purposes
and functions of organized
medicine,” Ryan wrote.

Eskin began a private practice
in 1959, delivering babies in
multiple hospitals for more than
40 years. He was a surgeon and
an early adopter of laser tools.

He also worked with
Planned Parenthood in North
Philadelphia, made home visits
through the late 1970s and
participated in bridal fairs,
where he counseled couples and
handed out “Love Carefully”
buttons. “The thing I most admired
about my dad was his willing-
ness to go against what the rest
of the world was thinking,”
Catherine Eskin said. “He
often had conflicts with some
groups because of his [belief in
a] right to choose.”
“Your dad was a hero and true
gentlemen that will be missed
by so many including myself ...

our condolences to your family
and mom,” PCMS Executive
Director Mark C. Austerberry
wrote in an email to Catherine
Eskin. “We will certainly recog-
nize and celebrate the many
achievements he did for not
only physicians but organized
medicine and the human race!
He always thought and fought
for the underdog!”
Aside from his medical
interests, Eskin nurtured a
lifelong passion for classical
music and jazz.

“He took me to a bar when I
was 7 to hear some jazz music
when his buddies were in
town,” Catherine Eskin said.

“My dad was a pretty cool guy.”
Eskin grew up in Atlantic
City, where he was first chair in
violin and viola in the All-Star
Orchestra. He also played the
clarinet and saxophone from
an early age, landing his first
paying gig at 11 or 12. He
played about 40 shows with
jazz bandleader Stan Kenton in
the summer of 1942.

A musical highlight occurred
two years later when, while a
16-year-old student at Princeton
University — he graduated high
school at 15 — he played viola in
a quartet with Albert Einstein.

“It was probably one of the
most thrilling moments of his
life,” Catherine Eskin said.

During a World War II
Navy stint, Eskin played in an
officer’s club band and formed
a band in Albany to support
himself while in medical
school. After the war, he
completed his undergraduate
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New year,
new home.

Bernie Eskin (front row, third from right) as a youth performing in a jazz
orchestra studies at Rutgers University.

In the Philadelphia area,
he joined a doctors’ orchestra,
spending 30 years there and
serving as its president. He
later joined the Main Line
Symphony Orchestra and the
Lower Merion Symphony.

Bernie and Lynn Eskin were
members of Har Zion Temple
in Penn Valley and frequent
travelers. One of their highlights was
meeting Princess Grace of
Monaco. Grace Kelly was born
in East Falls and her family
was involved with Women’s
Medical College. Catherine
Eskin believes her father met
Kelly at some point through
the hospital and, before a
European vacation in the
mid-1960s, he wrote her asking
if they could visit. She agreed,
inviting them for tea.

Eskin is survived by his wife,
Lynn; three children, Gregg
Eskin (Esther Cohen), JoAnne
Sutkin (Steve) and Catherine
Eskin (Michael Barickman);
and seven grandchildren. l
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