Evelyn B. Wiener, 62, U. Penn health service director

DR. EVELYN B. WIENER was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in late 2010, but she was not about to let the disease either define or sideline her.

Evelyn, an internist and longtime executive director of the University of Pennsylvania's Student Health Service, never lost her optimistic view of life, her enthusiasm for her work or her plans for the future.

"She worked tirelessly through chemotherapy," her family said.

She was so committed to her chosen profession that even after recurring symptoms sent her back to the hospital, she told friends that she fully intended to keep her plans to attend continuing education and conferences in Boston and San Antonio.

"The job was in many ways her therapy," said her sister, Marcia Pelberg. "Work kept her going."

Evelyn Wiener, an award-winning physician and teacher, who also was a talented artist and loving wife and mother, died Thursday. She was 62 and lived in Elkins Park.

"No words can express how much Evelyn's expertise, care, compassion and strength imbued our world-class Student Health Service with its resonance and responsiveness to our students and to all of us," said Dr. Valerie Swain-Cade McCoullum, University of Pennsylvania vice provost for university life.

"She set the bar high and she made sure we crossed it," said McCoullum, who attended Philadelphia High School for Girls with Evelyn.

Evelyn grew up in Northeast Philadelphia, the child of Sarah and Leon Wiener, both teachers. After graduating from Girls High in 1969, she went on to Brandeis University. She received her medical degree from Temple University Medical School and became an instructor and attending physician at Temple Hospital.

She also was a staff physician in federally funded community health centers.

Evelyn had been practicing and teaching at Penn when she became director of the university's Student Health Service in 2000.

"I think it was a perfect marriage of her clinical skills and administrative abilities," her sister said. "The challenges were phenomenal. She was very much a critical thinker, someone who looked at things in their totality."

Evelyn was a talented artist who worked in a variety of media. She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She dabbled in medical drawing early in her career.

In 2012, she won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American College Health Association. She was a past president of the Mid-Atlantic College Health Association.

Evelyn grew up spending summers car-camping with her family through the national parks. As an adult, she continued to prefer to see the sights via a car or train, and was especially fond of traveling through Canada.

She and her husband, Ken Jacobs, a restoration architect and teacher, had lived in Elkins Park for 25 years. Besides her husband and sister, she is survived by a son, Alex Jacobs, and a daughter, Molly Jacobs.

Services: 11 a.m. today at Goldsteins' Rosenberg's Raphael-Sacks Funeral Home, 6410 N. Broad St.