Penn Highlands Elk Welcomes New Emergency Physician

Penn Highlands Elk is pleased to welcome Robert Oelhaf, MD, FAAEM, to its medical staff. Dr. Oelhaf is board certified in emergency medicine, and he began working in the Penn Highlands Elk emergency department in June.

Dr. Oelhaf graduated from the Pennsylvania State University Medical School in 1995. While there, he served as the president of the local chapter of the American Medical Student Association. He then went on to perform a three-year residency in emergency medicine in the combined York Hospital/Penn State Hershey Medical Center program.

Dr. Oelhaf worked for three years in the emergency department at the Ashtabula County Medical Center in Ohio, then for 11 years in the Pittsburgh area in the Heritage Valley Health System, primarily at the Sewickley Hospital location.

Dr. Oelhaf developed an interest in the origins of drug seeking behavior and drug addiction, which evolved out of his emergency medicine experiences.

“I would see the same patients over and over again for the same thing,” he explains. “I began to examine the systemic and process issues at play, that patients used to feed their addiction.”

He opened an addiction treatment practice in Pittsburgh within an existing psychiatry office and worked there for several years, while also continuing his emergency medicine practice. He published numerous articles during this time on addiction management and gave lectures on drug seeker management at the emergency medicine residencies at York Hospital and Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh.