10/5/2009 - For his outstanding work as a doctor and a humanitarian, Jack Cimino has been named an honorary alumnus by the College of Mount Saint Vincent.  Dr. Cimino served with Calvary Hospital, a nursing home in the West Bronx administered by the Dominican Sisters of the Sick Poor, since 1962.  His long career has included many accomplishments including a major breakthrough in dialysis therapy.  Dr. Cimino has been a lecturer at the Mount teaching Bioethics since 1989.

Dr. Cimino attended the NYU-Bellevue College of Medicine and did his residency at the Edward J. Meyer Memorial Hospital in Buffalo, NY.  He officially retired from his position as director of the Palliative Care Institute at Calvary Hospital in 2003, where he provided care for the terminally ill for over 40 years.

He was responsible for one of the most important treatment advances in the history of dialysis: the Cimino-Brescia arteriovenous (AV) fistula. Developed 4 decades ago by Dr. Cimino and his colleagues Michael Brescia, MD, and Kenneth Appel, MD, the AV fistula is still among the most popular methods of vascular access for hemodialysis in the world.

Dr. Cimino has taught medical students for over 50 years and has taught at the College of Mount Saint Vincent for 20 years.

Said Charles L. Flynn Jr., President of the College, “In American culture, which struggles to ignore death and alternately denies and rages against grief, and in a profession ardently devoted to the mechanics of healing, Jack Cimino’s work has been path breaking both medically and in compassion.”

A reception will be held on Wednesday, October 7, at 4:00 p.m. in the President’s Reception Room.