Stephen R. Gaspar

Stephen R. Gaspar, 60, a rehabilitation specialist at Temple University Hospital who focused on that career after a stroke in the 1980s, died of pancreatic cancer Wednesday, Aug. 24, at the Vitas Hospice at Hearthstone in Irving.

Dr. Gaspar's sister, Lesley, said that since 1988 he had been an assistant professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Temple. She said he was board certified in both internal medicine and physiatry, a practice specializing in physical medicine and rehabilitation. His sister said that at Temple, he specialized in cardiopulmonary and geriatric rehabilitation and burn care.

Born in Orange, Dr. Gaspar earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Texas in 1974 and graduated from that school's Southwestern Medical School in Dallas in 1978. He completed two residencies, in internal medicine at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas in 1980, and in physiatry at the Howard Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at New York University Medical Center in 1985.

"Shortly after opening his private practice in north Dallas," his sister wrote, "he suffered a massive cerebral vascular accident that left him critically ill.

Beside his sister, he is survived by his mother, Beatrice Wolf.

A private memorial was set for Saturday, Oct. 15, in Dallas.