Dr. Richard Leshner and his Mother, Ruth
A Family Focus on Serving: Dr. Richard Leshner and his family share a history with St. Mary Medical Center that is generational.
“My father was a physician whose office was three blocks away from the original St. Mary Hospital located on Frankford Avenue and Palmer Street,” said Richard. “Other kids my age went with their dads to the ballpark, I accompanied my father to the hospital and made home visits. That was when I made the decision to become a physician myself.”
Richard’s office, Newtown Cardiology Associates, is located at St. Mary Medical Center, where he also serves as Chief of Cardiology. He has been an ardent supporter of St. Mary since 1991 through his participation in the Spring Galas, golf outings and generous gifts to the hospital. To understand his support, one needs only to trace his family connection with St. Mary.
Richard’s path to the medical profession began with the influence of his grandfather, Samuel Erlichman. “My grandfather was a Russian immigrant to this country,” Richard explained. “He had to leave his native Kiev because Jews were being persecuted, and America represented the land of opportunity and personal safety.” Samuel became a dress manufacturer and raised his family in Philadelphia. For this industrious immigrant, making it in America was to become educated because it opened other doors for success. His daughters all went to college, and his son Irving became a physician. “My grandfather would ask me every day, ‘How many years before you become a doctor?’, and I would have to figure out the years of education that lay before me. Fortunately, he did not know about residency, or I would have had to add those years too,” Richard laughed. Samuel died when Richard was 16, but he remained a major influence in the young man’s life. William Leshner, Richard’s father, lived through the difficult years of the Depression and served in North Africa and Europe during World War II. He used the G.I. Bill of Rights to make his way through college and medical school. “My dad was a solo practitioner who loved his patients,” Richard said. “He understood on an emphatic level what it meant for a family not to have money, or what damages war could inflict upon a person’s psyche as well as his body. Being with my father as he treated his patients was a great lesson in the healing arts.”
Richard doesn’t remember his father turning away any patients because they could not pay his fees. “I recall my father coming home with two cases of Cheese Doodles given as payment for services received. The most interesting form of payment was two live lobsters.” When Richard was 16, he began working at St. Mary, doing every job that was available. “I was an orderly, I painted stripes in the parking lot during one very hot summer spell, but jumped at the chance to be an office clerk instead,” he recalled. “The sisters of St. Francis were very wonderful to me since I was already a regular at the hospital while my father made his rounds.”
After Richard made the decision to go to medical school, his father made it a habit to call him two weeks before finals, bringing him along to witness the birth of babies. “Once you see the wonders of life being created, and you want to be a part of this higher calling, you have to study hard at your books,” he would counsel his son. Richard’s mother Ruth was another major influence. “Pre-med can be overwhelming at times, but a telephone call with my mother was always calming,” Richard said. “She had a real sense of how demanding the profession could be, and she was the pillar of support for our family.” Ruth recalls the sound of the telephone ringing day and night, as William was called to over 5000 births during the course of his practice. “My husband was devoted to his profession, and I was determined not to interfere with that,” she said. “His patients used to send a variety of meals home with him. Often I wasn’t familiar with what the food was, but I remember how delicious all the cuisines were.”
Ruth used to accompany her husband to St. Mary, and sit with the nuns while he made his hospital rounds. “The sisters were fascinating people who talked with me about a range of topics,” she remembers. “We were treated as members of the St. Mary family.” The nuns were so much a part of the Leshner family that when Richard married, four of them attended the wedding. “I saw firsthand how important it was for a community to have excellent medical services available to them,” Richard said. “St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne has its roots in the original St. Mary Hospital in Philadelphia, where my father practiced for so many years. There is a connection between family and hospital which I feel privileged to support, as does my mother, since 2001.” In fact, Ruth said it is an “honor to give to St. Mary Medical Center because they help so many people. Supporting the hospital is well worth it.”