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May 12, 2011

Obituary: Joseph J. Schwerha

SchwerhaJoseph J. Schwerha, an adjunct faculty member in the Graduate School of Public Health and expert in occupational medicine, died April 27, 2011, after being stricken with an apparent heart attack while driving his car.

Schwerha, 72, was an integral part of Pitt’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health (EOH) and played a key role in its residency program.

Schwerha retired from U.S. Steel, where he had been general manager of health sciences and corporate medical director, to join the Pitt faculty in 1998. Board-certified in occupational medicine, he directed the EOH occupational medicine residency and certificate in public health preparedness and disaster response programs until 2009. He also served as EOH division director 1998-2002.

Schwerha was a member of Pitt’s radiation safety committee, the safety committee and the UPMC graduate medical education committee.

At  the  time  of  his  death, Schwerha was a member of the occupational medicine department staff at Jefferson Hospital and was a consultant in occupational and environmental medicine and clinical professor of community medicine at West Virginia University.

Schwerha earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Pitt. He received a master’s degree in environmental health and industrial hygiene from the University of Michigan and an MD from WVU.

At Pitt, he was the principal investigator of a long-standing training grant from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and a collaborator in occupational and community-based environmental health studies.

He served on international committees and boards including the National Academy of Sciences, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the National Safety Council and the editorial boards of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the Journal of Managed Care Medicine and the Journal of Emergency Management.

He contributed to several Institute of Medicine reports and participated in IOM activities, including reviews of the NIOSH personal protective technology program and traumatic injury research programs.

He also was active in local and regional occupational medicine groups including serving as occupational medicine chair for the Allegheny County Medical Society and playing an active role in the Pittsburgh Area Occupational Physicians organization.

Among many honors, Schwerha was the 2005 recipient of the Knudsen Award, the highest award given by the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. In 1999, he was a faculty inductee into the Pitt chapter of Delta Omega, the national honorary society for graduate studies in public health.

EOH chair Bruce Pitt commended Schwerha’s unique background as an asset to the department’s residency program. Well-respected in the field and well-connected through his years of experience, Schwerha called upon colleagues, friends and associates in industry, academia and government to advance the program. Many in his circle were in southwestern Pennsylvania and he tapped them to aid in teaching, research, placing residents and finding them jobs, Pitt said.

Pitt said Schwerha was “the driving force in sustaining a complicated and well-run specialty here.”

The program typically included six residents at any time. Medically trained, they earned a master’s degree in public health and gained clinical and administrative experience, Pitt explained. Schwerha undertook intense personal efforts to connect the residents with formal instruction and experience in hospitals, government agencies and industry to round out their training and research. His efforts resulted in extraordinary loyalty among his colleagues, former residents and trainees, Pitt said. “He was a good guy and well admired,” Pitt said.

Jay Harper, medical director for UPMC employee health, became acquainted with Schwer-ha when he heard the doctor lecture on occupational medicine in a medical school class at WVU. Later, during his residency in internal medicine, Harper began to consider occupational medicine and called Schwerha for advice.

He phoned the doctor late at night — Schwerha had the unusual practice of keeping late office hours in his own private practice in Finleyville after his workday at U.S. Steel was finished.

“I called him around midnight to talk about occupational medicine,” Harper recalled. Schwerha took time to advise him in spite of the late hour. “He was a very giving guy,” Harper said.

Later, Harper occasionally encountered Schwerha’s patients while a resident at Mercy Hospital. “The patients of his that I took care of, they loved him,” Harper said.

While Schwerha was generous in taking time to tend to his patients and mentor medical students, he didn’t neglect his family. Harper said Schwerha enjoyed fishing and boating with his children and grandchildren at Deep Creek, Md., and also enjoyed a home in Naples, Fla.

Schwerha is survived by his wife, Dorothy Fefolt Schwerha; four children; nine grandchildren; two sisters, and many nieces and nephews. Memorial services were held April 30.

—Kimberly K. Barlow


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