Samuel Oleesky was a consultant physician at Manchester Royal Infirmary and a lecturer and examiner at Manchester University. He was born in Manchester, the son of Morris Oleesky, a butcher, and Anne Oleesky née Cohen, of Liverpool, the daughter of a jeweller. He was educated at Derby Street Elementary School and then Central High School, Manchester. In 1938 he won a state scholarship and an entrance scholarship to Manchester University. During his time at medical school he gained a Rockefeller medical studentship to study in the United States, and in 1942 made a dangerous Atlantic crossing to Washington University in St Louis. He won many prizes as an undergraduate and qualified MB ChB from Manchester University in 1944. In 1949 he was awarded an MD from Washington University.

From 1944 to 1946 he was a house physician at Manchester Royal Infirmary. He then became a chief assistant to John Crighton Bramwell [Munk’s Roll, Vol.VII, p.61], also at the Royal Infirmary. From 1948 to 1950 he was a demonstrator in human physiology at Manchester University, and was subsequently a chief assistant to Robert Platt [Munk’s Roll, Vol.VII, p.470].

In 1952 he became a lecturer in therapeutics at Sheffield under Edward Johnson Wayne [Munk’s Roll, Vol.IX, p.565], and a year later was appointed as a consultant physician at Crumpsall Hospital, Manchester, and an honorary lecturer in medicine at Manchester University. In 1956 he was also appointed to Ancoats Hospital. In 1965 he returned to Manchester Royal Infirmary as a consultant physician.

He was initially interested in gastroenterology and nephrology, but later specialised in diabetes and served on national committees of the British Diabetic Association. He was president of the Manchester Medical Society from 1979 to 1980, and an active member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. He was an honorary physician to the Royal Northern College of Music.

At the time of his election to the fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians in 1963 he listed music, chess, railways and gardening as his interests.

In 1952 he married Sheila Fay Dawson, who was also a doctor. They had a son, David, and a daughter, Anne.