Cheshire Obituaries: Dr. Lee R. Sataline, 84

Dr. Lee R. Sataline, an internist and gastroenterologist, died Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014 at the Hospital of Central Connecticut, Bradley Memorial campus in Southington.

He was 84 and lived most of his life in Cheshire. He died from complications from an earlier stroke, according to his family.

Dr. Sataline practiced medicine for 47 years. He was chief of gastroenterology at Bradley Memorial Hospital and a staff physician at Waterbury Hospital, while providing consultations to New Britain General. He closed his 26-year general medical practice in 1998.

For decades Dr. Sataline taught medicine and trained future doctors. He was chief of medicine at St. Luke’s Hospital in Bethlehem, Penna. from 1968 to 1972, where he built the medical training program and established an intensive care unit. Before that, he was director of medical education The Toledo Hospital in Ohio and at Lakewood Hospital in Lakewood, Ohio, helping to develop the medical residency training programs at both.

Dr. Sataline was a faculty member of four medical schools: Ohio State, the former Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and the University of Connecticut in Farmington. He received several teaching awards and authored two dozen scientific papers on conditions ranging from ulcerative colitis to alcoholism to a hereditary swallowing disorder.

Lee Roy Sataline was born on Oct. 31, 1929 in New Britain, the son of Irene and Andrew Sataline, the former postmaster of Plainville.

Dr. Sataline married his high school sweetheart, Therese Reckmack, at the Vatican in 1956. Dr. Sataline obtained bachelor’s degrees in arts and sciences from Georgetown University and his doctor of medicine from the University of Bologna in Italy in 1956.

He completed a medical residency at the Hospital of St. Raphael in New Haven, where he also served as the chief medical resident. He then took a gastroenterology fellowship at The Ohio State University and the Veterans Administration Hospital in Dayton, Ohio, where he served as the chief medical resident. He was a member of multiple state and national medical organizations.

After retiring from medicine, he obtained a Master of Science degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University. He furthered his interest in history by attending classes at Yale.

For years Dr. Sataline was an avid bicyclist and prolific letter writer and essayist, publishing in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Hartford Courant and elsewhere about medicine, insurance companies, European history, Italian-Americans, and the importance of dressing well.

Surviving are his wife; two daughters, Laura Albee of Washington, Conn., and Suzanne Sataline of Hong Kong; and two grandchildren.

Dr. Sataline always claimed there were three reasons he should not have become a doctor: “I have legible handwriting; I don’t play golf; and I have a sense of humor.’’

Dr. Sataline’s funeral will be held Saturday, Jan. 11 9:15 A.m. from The Alderson Funeral Home of Cheshire, 615 South Main St, 06410 and proceed to St. Bridget Church, 175 Main Street, Cheshire 06410 for a Mass of Christian Burial at 10 A.M. Burial will follow in St. Bridget Cemetery, Higgins Road, Cheshire 06410. Calling hours will be held Friday, January 10, 2014 from 5 to 7 P.M at the funeral home. In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to Cheshire Academy, 10 Main St., Cheshire, Conn. 06410, attention: Barbara Davis; or Quinnipiac University School of Nursing, 275 Mount Carmel Ave., Hamden, Conn. 06518, attention: Dean Jean Lange. To view these arrangements online, send a condolence, or light a memorial candle, please visit www.aldersonfuneralhomes.com.