Dr. Donald Bomkamp, behind first hospice program in Cedar Rapids, dies at 85

CEDAR RAPIDS - A Cedar Rapids doctor who brought the first hospice program to the area has died.

Dr. Donald F. Bomkamp, 85, died Monday after a fight with Alzheimer's, according to his obituary.

Bomkamp was instrumental in bringing the first Cedar Rapids hospice program to Mercy Medical Center in 1980, according to his obituary.

'His founding, with Mercy, of one of the country's first hospital-sponsored hospice programs set in motion a then revolutionary new approach to compassionate care at the end of life,” said Mercy President and CEO Tim Charles in a statement. 'His passion lives on in the Oldorf Hospice House of Mercy. We are grateful for his service and this legacy.”

The death of Bomkamp's eldest son was what drove the doctor to establish a hospice care program, which offers terminally ill patients comfort during their last days of life.

His son, David Bomkamp, 18, was diagnosed with malignant melanoma in 1977, according to a 2006 Mercy Medical Center interview with Bomkamp.

'It became terminal and at the time, there was nowhere for anyone like that to go,” said Jason Anderson, Bomkamp's grandson who was 3 years old when David Bomkamp died.

Darlene Schmidt, CEO of the Community Health Free Clinic in Cedar Rapids, said Bomkamp had told her years later that the moment doctors told him they couldn't do anything for his son was what led him to seek change.

'I knew there had to be something better for our son and patients in general,” Bomkamp said in the interview.

That compassion also drove him in his everyday practice, according to his colleagues.

'He really had the ability to approach anyone with dignity, respect and compassion,” said Dr. William Galbraith, a retired internal medicine doctor who met Bomkamp when the later was a student at the University of Iowa College of Medicine.

After his retirement, Bomkamp volunteered at the Community Health Free Clinic in Cedar Rapids.

'Patients would line up and really just beg to see him,” Schmidt said. 'He gave patients time to tell their stories. He always had the time to listen.”

Anderson said he lived with his grandfather until Anderson and his mother moved out of his grandparents' house when he was 13. Due to an uneasy relationship with his father, Anderson said he considered Bomkamp a father figure.

'He was the greatest guy I've ever met in my life. He would do anything for anybody,” Anderson said.

Bomkamp was born in 1932 in Cedar Rapids and studied at Roosevelt High School, according to the obituary.

He left Loras College in Dubuque to serve as a medical corpsman in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War from 1950 to 1955. Bomkamp graduated from the University of Iowa College of Medicine in 1960, and went on to open a private practice on Third Avenue SW that he operated for 53 years.

He also served as president of Mercy medical staff, president of the Linn County Medical Society and chairman of the Linn County Heart Association.

A vigil service for Bomkamp is scheduled from 3 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Teahen Funeral Home, 3100 F Ave. NW. Another vigil takes place an hour before the funeral.

The funeral is at 10 a.m. Thursday at All Saints Catholic Church, 720 29th St. SE #2, followed by a burial service at Mount Calvary Cemetery, 375 32nd Street Dr. SE.

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