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Dr. James E. Cimino, a longtime medical director at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx who played a key role in its development as an internationally recognized model for palliative care, died Feb. 11 at his home in Valhalla. He was 82.
Dr. Cimino, while serving at the Bronx Veterans’ Administration Hospital in 1967, led the team that developed the arteriovenous (AV) fistula to provide necessary blood flow for people with kidney failure.
In 1962, while serving at the VA hospital and other Bronx hospitals as well as maintaining his private practice, Dr. Cimino joined the staff of the House of Calvary Nursing Home, then operated by the Dominican Sisters of the Sick Poor.
Dr. Cimino became chief of medicine at Calvary in 1964. He was named medical director in 1968 and set about transforming Calvary into an accredited institution for terminal patients.
The hospital soon gained a reputation for a high level of care that has influenced hospice movements in the United States and abroad. Calvary Hospital is the nation’s only fully accredited acute care specialty hospital devoted solely to providing palliative care to adult advanced cancer patients. In 1985 he founded the Palliative Care Institute, extending Calvary’s mission to include the education of medical students and cancer care technicians. Although he officially retired as director of the Palliative Care Institute in 2003, he continued to teach in the institute until shortly before his death.
Born in the Bronx, he completed his bachelor’s degree at New York University. He went on to the New York University-Bellevue School of Medicine where he met and married graduating nursing student Dorothy Naperkoski. After Dr. Cimino received his medical degree, the couple moved to Buffalo where he completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Edward J. Meyer Memorial Hospital and a fellowship in physiology at the University of Buffalo. He also served in the U.S. Air Force in Orlando, Fla., rising to the rank of captain.
Besides his wife, Dr. Cimino is survived by six children and his sister, Camilla Harris. A Memorial Mass was offered Feb. 18 at Holy Name of Jesus Church in Valhalla.
