Dr. Don Bienfang
There will be a service in Lincoln on January 20 for Dr. Don Bienfang, M.D., Chief of Neuro-Ophthalmology at Brigham and Woman’s Hospital and Associate Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, who died on December 9, 2023 at age 84 after a brief illness.
Born in Elmhurst, Ill., the son of Esther (Kuhlow) and Mark Bienfang, Don was a graduate of York High School’s class of 1956 and went on to complete an undergraduate degree in Mathematics at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana in 1960, and then to Harvard Medical School in 1960. As a medical student, Don worked at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, becoming its first respiratory therapist in 1961, and held a research position in Naples, Italy. Graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1965 and following his internship, fellowship, and residencies that took him to the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Md., and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Don returned to the Brigham in 1972 and, with his partner Leo T. Chylack Jr., founded the Ophthalmology group, beginning a nearly five-decade-long career at the Brigham.
As a distinguished surgeon and clinician, Don was known for his expertise and depth of knowledge, his warmth, and his wonderfully dry and intellectual sense of humor. Don was a true believer in listening and talking to his patients, often in their native language, to allow the patient to guide the diagnosis. Don felt honored to learn from icons in the field and, in turn, he served the Boston and international communities as a surgeon and teacher of neuro-ophthalmology with dedication and love. Along with the multitude of patients for whom he cared over five decades, Don’s professional legacy lives on in the doctors he mentored, and what is now known as Bienfang’s test for myasthenia gravis, a simple noninvasive test for an autoimmune disease that is difficult to diagnose.
Don met Denise, his wife of 60 years, in 1961, and they were married in 1964, He leaves behind two sons, Matthew Bienfang (Elizabeth) of Hingham and Joshua Bienfang of Bethesda, Md. Don was a devoted husband and a loving father, and he enjoyed and cultivated the ability to send Denise into helpless peals of laughter with his unexpected humor; one of her fondest memories is listening from the bottom of the stairs at their young son’s bedtime while Don gave their stuffed animals personalities and made them talk.
Don and Denise shared an independent-minded approach to life, and in 1974 they moved to Lincoln to embrace the back-to-the-land ethos of the time. In Lincoln, Don built a blacksmith forge, used wood-burning stoves for heat, raised chickens (and a few mean geese), and tended a large garden. Don’s chickens and their homegrown eggs became a feature of the family and community, and tending them served as a meditative evening pastime for him.
Don was not a slave to convention and he enjoyed being that way. In 1985 he slapped on a “Honk if You’re Horny” bumper sticker on his car just to see (until his family made him take it off)… he collected exotic breeds of chickens and unique power tools for his farmstead… he put offbeat cartoons on the insides of the kitchen cabinets for Denise to find… he preferred nonlethal pest control so he built a tunnel to protect the chickens and he kept deer out of his garden with his own scent… he felt a deep love for each of the dogs and at least one of his family’s cats.
He had a wonderful enthusiasm for trying new things, including baking bread, making root beer, motorcycling, playing mandolin, and painting. In the early 1960s in Naples, he developed a taste for espresso, and his sons fondly remember Saturday trips into Boston to watch back-to-back kung fu movies in Chinatown and then to the North End to get a cannoli and an espresso or two.
Don took up running in the late 1970s, and he ran the Boston and New York Marathons multiple times. He was a member of the Harvard Club and the Longfellow Tennis Club, and he enjoyed playing squash and tennis with his friends. He had an unreturnable chip shot that he deployed whenever his children or grandchildren made the mistake of trying to go easy on the old man.
Don and Denise traveled widely together, and later they turned a house on Cape Cod into a gathering point for their family and their large community of friends. Don loved being “Grandpa-Fang” to his grandchildren Micah, Britt, Abby, Caroline, Lily, and Sam. He loved to take them up to the chickens to hunt for eggs or to ride the tractor with him as he mowed the fields in Lincoln.
Relatives and friends are invited to attend the memorial service at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 20, 2024, at the First Parish Church (4 Bedford Road in Lincoln).