Obituary: Dr. Herbert Leonard Wachtel

By Emily J. Minor

    BOCA RATON — Dr. Herbert Leonard Wachtel, a military cardiologist who left the service in 1969 to join Bethesda Memorial Hospital’s burgeoning heart ward, died Feb. 12 in his sleep at home. He was 81.
    After joining Bethesda, Dr. Wachtel would eventually serve as both the hospital’s chief of cardiology and chief of staff. He was also instrumental in helping start Delray Medical Center, said his wife, Lenore.
7960642669?profile=original    Dr. Wachtel was born in 1934 in the New York borough of Queens, son of the late Jacob and Sally Wachtel. He married Lenore Ackerman in 1958. A year later, Dr. Wachtel graduated from the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, and began serving in the U.S. Army.
    While in the service, he served as chief of cardiology at William Beaumont Hospital in El Paso, Texas. But when Dr. Wachtel was ready to leave the Army, he, his wife, and their four children wanted to live someplace close to the ocean, said Lenore Wachtel. They considered Southern California, but the need for medical doctors there wasn’t that great, she said.
    “Florida at the time was calling for doctors,” she remembered.
    When the family arrived in 1969, Lenore Wachtel said her husband, also a founding member of Temple Beth El in Boca Raton, was the only Jewish physician on staff at Bethesda.
    In those days, it created a bit of talk about town, she said.
    Dr. Wachtel’s intelligence and bedside manner quickly won over the hearts of patients and colleagues alike. The cardiology field was changing rapidly in those years, his wife remembers, and Dr. Wachtel was quick to absorb new procedures and studies.
    On many occasions, he visited nursing homes and recommended pacemakers for patients who seemed too ill to move about, she remembered.
    “He would put in pacemakers and they would get up, walk around, and go home,” she said.
    After helping establish Bethesda’s widely recognized cardiac program, Dr. Wachtel retired about 15 years ago. It was then that he and his wife were able to enjoy traveling, eventually visiting all the continents except Antarctica. The doctor also loved to play golf and bridge, and enjoyed both classical and operatic music.
    “He was dedicated to his work and his family,” said his wife, “and he was very well loved.”
    In addition to his wife, the couple’s four married children survive their father: Mitchell Wachtel, of Lubbock, Texas; Stacy Wachtel, of Tulsa, Okla.; Edward Wachtel, of New York City; and Janice Wachtel Walton, of Jacksonville. The children’s spouses and six grandchildren also survive him.
    Make memorial donations to the Florence Fuller Child Development Centers, 200 NE 14th St., Boca Raton, FL 33432, or the Herbert Wachtel Temple Beth El Memorial Fund, 333 SW Fourth Ave., Boca Raton, FL 33432

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