Peter Douglas Grimm

Peter Douglas Grimm, D.O.
July 17, 1952 – February 20, 2016

Farewell to a Seattle son

"He was a perfect combination of head, heart and hands."
--Jim Youngren, Director,
Long Live the Kings

Dr. Peter D. Grimm, a clinical radiation oncologist who became an international leader, educator, entrepreneur and inventor in the field of prostate cancer, died Saturday, February 20, 2016. He was also known as a dedicated fisherman and was a leader and activist dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of Pacific Northwest wild salmon. He was 63 and died in Seattle where he was born and raised.

The cause was congestive heart and kidney failure, the final outcome of a pneumonia diagnosed at the end of 2015. He worked joyfully (and determinedly) for years while under treatment for heart and kidney insufficiencies, and had an array of other chronic disorders.

Peter was a private practice physician who collaborated nationally and internationally with academic physicians and other clinical doctors to conduct research into the diagnosis and outcomes of prostate cancer treatment. His specialty was brachytherapy, a minimally invasive surgery that plants tiny short-lived radioactive seeds next to cancer cells. Introduced in Europe, he and his partner Dr. John Blasko of the Swedish Hospital Tumor Institute Group brought it to the United States and pioneered its development and implementation in the US in the late 80's. In 2012, he left the group to establish the Prostate Cancer Treatment Center. Over his lifetime he has personally treated more than 6,000 patients and trained more than 6,000 physicians in the procedure. He travelled throughout the world giving lectures, training, and consulting with policy makers in countries such as Japan, Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Mexico, Argentina, and Spain. In addition to the numerous articles he published in scientific journals, he was the lead author of the Prostate Cancer Treatment Book, a handbook for patients with chapters written by an international expert in each treatment choice. He founded the Prostate Cancer Treatment Foundation, whose mission and purpose is to help patients make informed choices about treatment. It allows a patient to compare 10 –year outcomes of every treatment plotted against his cancer stage utilizing the results of every article on cancer treatment published world- wide. He was constantly imagining improvements in diagnosis and treatment, and over the years was granted 3 patented improvements which are use today.

Though his accomplishments were admired and respected, Peter always attributed his success to the support, inspiration, and compassion given him along the way. He said, "I learned you didn't have to know how to do everything, you just needed to know someone who did." He was also open about his own struggles, because as he said, "It isn't about the falling down, it's about the getting up." Born the middle son of nine brothers and raised on Capitol Hill with the other large Catholic families of the 50's, Peter developed a lifelong sense of the joy of the loyalty and inclusion that derive from team play. He never forgot those Jesuits who mentored him through his teen years at Seattle Preparatory School ('70) and Seattle University ('74). He was a lifetime supporter of their mission of inclusion and justice. He was grateful to the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine (now Midwestern University) for accepting him after a slew of rejections from other schools. It was during this period that he met, Dawn Winters and her daughter, Robyn Bell. They married and became a family in 1978 five months before he began his internship at Eastmoreland General Hospital in Portland. His experiences led him to pursue a residency in Radiation Oncology at UCLA where Peter said people much smarter than he was taught him a lot. He was thrilled to be accepted to the Swedish Hospital Tumor Institute Group, and returned to his beloved Seattle in 1985. Peter was an explorer and innovator with an entrepreneurial spirit, and the Tumor Institute gave him leeway to execute his ideas.
When he returned to Seattle and his love of boating and fishing, Peter noticed a degradation of the fishing fields. He connected with other concerned people and began raising salmon fry in incubators on at his cabin on Hood Canal. He joined a consortium of fishermen, scientists, tribes, government entities and citizen known as the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group and later was honored to be on the board of Long Live the Kings, an organization that seeks to coordinate the efforts of salmon groups across the state.
He stayed connected to his Osteopathic colleagues, and felt privileged to be asked onto the board of The Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences, a new medical school starting up in Yakima. One of his proudest moments of 2015 was the graduation of the school's first contingent of medical students. Right up to the end he was continuing to build his network of "smarter people."

A large part of his life and legacy has been to encourage the dreams and passions of those he befriended along the way. He will be sorely missed by his patients, his staff, his colleagues, friends, and all the young people he counselled. He was predeceased by an infant daughter, Adrienne, his nephew, Christian Montegut, his father, Huber K. Grimm, and his mother Georgia MacAdam Grimm. He will be remembered with laughter and tears by his wife, Dawn, his son Justin, his daughter Robyn (Omar) Vera, his three grandchildren, Daniel, Malik, and Alexandra, his daughter-of-the-heart, Jackie Gonsier, his eight brothers Thomas (Gari), Robert Grimm, SJ, Larry (Barb), Gerry (Betsy), Chris (Wendy), Paul, Scott (Karin), Patrick (Nancy), one sister, Suzie (Monte) and his mother-of-the-heart Mrs. Roy (Louise) Beaumont, his nephews and nieces and a large extended clan.

Memorial Services will be held on Saturday, March 5th at 10:00 AM at
St. Joseph's Catholic Church,
732 18th Ave E, Seattle, 98112. Remembrances may be made to
The Prostate Cancer Treatment Research Foundation, www.pctrf.org.

Hoffner Fisher & Harvey
Guestbook at harveyfuneral.com