TIMM A. ZIMMERMANN, MD

The family would like to thank the kind staff and physicians at United General Hospital for providing them with council, support, and sustenance during Timm’s final rounds (again, you know who you are). He was a fighter to the end. Timm was born Sept. 23, 1935, in Plymouth Wis., as the oldest son to Glenn and Luella Zimmermann. Hard work and discipline were expected of him by his police chief dad; therefore he excelled in his studies graduating top of his class.

He met his future wife, Suzanne Unger, while in high school. They were married soon after high school in September 1956 while Timm was going to pharmacy school in Michigan.

After pharmacy school Timm worked as a pharmacist in Sheboygan, Wis., for a few years to earn enough money to attend medical school. It was at this time Mike, their first son, was born in 1958. In 1959, Timm was accepted into the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison against the advice of the college telling him that medical school was not a good idea for a family man with children. But he was up for the challenge. Their second son John was born in 1960 in Madison while he was in medical school. It was while doing an internship at King County Hospital in Seattle that their third child, Linda, was born in 1965. He graduated with honors from medical school in 1963 and became a family doctor in a small town in Wisconsin during a time when doctors made house calls.

In 1967, he was involved in a tragic car accident that left him broken up and paraplegic. The hot Wisconsin summers and snowy winters were not a place for wheelchairs, and remembering its mild northwest climate, the family moved back to Seattle where he went back to school to get his boards in internal medicine. He was told that the rigors of going through the program with a family and in a wheelchair were not advised, but he felt he was up to the challenge. He successfully graduated and became assistant professor of internal medicine at the UW hospital, earning honors as an educator and developing an ambulatory medicine clinic at the UW.

Wanting to move out of the ever-crowded Seattle area and looking to stretch himself further, he entered the nuclear medicine program at the UW in 1973. This was against the advice of the program director as the rigors of being in a wheelchair, raising a family, working as a professor at the UW and attending the program was probably a recipe for failure. Timm again did not shy away from the challenge.

He graduated in 1975, and the family moved to Mount Vernon where Timm developed, grew and maintained the Nuclear Medicine department at Skagit Valley and United General Hospitals, giving both hospitals his expertise in this important diagnostic technology. I am sure that the hospitals were skeptical of how this wheelchair bound physician was going to develop a new department, but they were a good enough judge of character to see he was up for the challenge. He also became a defacto cardiologist as this specialty had not yet come to Skagit Valley. He also helped to maintain the CCU/ICU at the hospitals. His nuclear medicine practice included caring for patients with thyroid disease, and he very much enjoyed his thyroid patients and the care he could provide them.

He remained active in his craft until injury forced his retirement in 1998. He very much enjoyed his colleagues, patients, and community. Surely his work was his play. Through it all, his greatest life challenge may have been his retirement, a challenge he was not well suited for.

Timm is survived by his caring wife and high school sweetheart of 54 years, Sue, who took the vows “for better or for worse” to the depths of her heart. He is also survived by his children, Mike and Sue Zimmermann, John and Debbie Zimmermann, and Linda and Tim FitzGerald as well as many loving grandchildren and great-grandchildren who felt his deep love and will remember his strong handshake. He is survived by his sister, Jane Risse, as well as many family members in Wisconsin.

He was preceded in death by his father, mother, and his brother Jack. Timm was a friend of Bill, and his extended family of brothers and sisters were very close to his heart … you know who you are! The knowledge he is at peace and that there are no wheelchairs in heaven tempers our sadness.

In lieu of flowers, please donate to Skagit Valley or United General Hospitals or the Michael J Fox Parkinson’s disease foundation.

A memorial service will be held at the end of the year on Thursday, Dec. 31, at 1 p.m. at His Place Church, 1480 S. Burlington Blvd., in Burlington.

Please share your thoughts of Timm and sign the online guest register at www.hawthornefh.com. Arrangements and cremation are under the care of Hawthorne Funeral Home in Mount Vernon.