James E. Cimino (1928-11 February 2010) was a physician who specialized in

palliative care Palliative care (derived from the Latin root , or 'to cloak') is an interdisciplinary medical caregiving approach aimed at optimizing quality of life and mitigating suffering among people with serious, complex, and often terminal illnesses. Wit ...

. He is best known for his invention of the

Cimino fistula A Cimino fistula, also Cimino-Brescia fistula, surgically created arteriovenous fistula and (less precisely) arteriovenous fistula (often abbreviated AV fistula or AVF), is a type of vascular access for hemodialysis. It is typically a surgically cr ...

and for his work as an administrator at Calvary Hospital into the Palliative Care Center it is today. Dr. Cimino went to

New York University School of Medicine NYU Grossman School of Medicine is a medical school of New York University, a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1841 and is one of two medical schools of the university, with the other being the Long Island School of ...

and did his internal medicine residency at the University of Buffalo followed by a fellowship in physiology. He then moved back to the Bronx to work at the Bronx Veterans Administration Medical Center where he started a program on dialysis. He developed techniques for employing

Arteriovenous fistula An arteriovenous fistula is an abnormal connection or passageway between an artery and a vein. It may be congenital, surgically created for hemodialysis treatments, or acquired due to pathologic process, such as trauma or erosion of an arterial ...

in patients with chronic

kidney failure Kidney failure, also known as end-stage kidney disease, is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney failure is classified as eit ...

, which led to a presentation in 1966 at the convention of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs. His presentation at first was met with indifference, but eventually was established as an important contribution to the field.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cimino, James 1928 births 2010 deaths American nephrologists People from the Bronx Physicians from New York City