Gary Dorshimer

Dorshimer died on Saturday 14 November 2026 at the age of 71. The Philadelphia Flyers announced his death the same day in a statement from chairman and governor Dan Hilferty, and the Eagles, 76ers and Union issued their own tributes. The cause of death was not made public, and funeral arrangements had not been announced at the time of the first reports.

Gary W. Dorshimer was a native of Allentown, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Parkland High School and from Muhlenberg College, and earned his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1981. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia and served as chief medical resident in 1984.

After his chief residency, Dorshimer joined a leading internal medicine practice in Philadelphia, where he said mentors shaped his approach to high quality care. At Penn Medicine he became section chief of general internal medicine at Pennsylvania Hospital and later founded Penn Personalized Care, serving as its executive medical director. He was also assistant program director of the primary care sports medicine fellowship at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Philadelphia Magazine listed him among its Top Docs every year from 2010 through 2025.

In sport he was the medical director of the Philadelphia Flyers from the 1980s, the Philadelphia Eagles' head internist for almost twenty years until 2018, the team sports medicine physician of the Philadelphia Union and the assistant primary care sports medicine physician of the Philadelphia 76ers. He served as secretary and treasurer of the National Hockey League Team Physicians Society, worked at multiple Olympic Games and was instrumental in the Flyers Alumni wellness program. In 2015 the Otho Davis Scholarship Foundation gave him the Dick Vermeil Lifetime Achievement Award for service to sports medicine, athletic training and the football community.

Dorshimer was married to Deborah, and they had a son, Geoffrey. Colleagues and players described him as a doctor who took extra time to get to know and comfort every patient, and who extended his care to players' families.

Dorshimer is remembered as one of the few physicians to serve all four of a city's major professional franchises at once, and as a general internist who brought primary care into professional sport. The 76ers said his generous spirit, warm sense of humour and genuine compassion left a lasting impact on the organisation and on the countless players and patients he cared for.