Dr. Irving Buchbinder

Passed on February 23rd, 2022

From the newspaper obituary:

Irving James Buchbinder, 75 of Willimantic, CT, died at home surrounded by family on Wednesday, February 23, 2022. Son of the late Arthur K. and Harriet (Wein) Buchbinder, Irving was a beloved husband, father, physician, scholar, and community leader. He served as a medical corpsman in the US Navy and was honorably discharged. Irving practiced medicine as a podiatrist for 44 years, both in private practice in Windham, Mansfield, Putnam, and Norwich, at Community Health Services in Hartford, and on staff at Day Kimball Hospital in Putnam, Mount Sinai, and St. Francis surgery centers in Hartford. He was an organizer and founding president of a chapter of health professionals and paraprofessionals through the American Federation of Teachers Union in Hartford. He was the first Emergency Medical Services teacher at Windham High School, where his mother Harriet taught decades before. Irving volunteered as an EMT, emergency medical services instructor, and department physician at the Dayville Fire Company #63 in Killingly and regularly volunteered at a local soup kitchen. He loved reading, listening to audiobooks, skiing, flying kites on a windy day, and taking his wife Brenda on date nights for shared ice cream and a movie. Irving is survived by his wife of 49 years, Brenda Liss Buchbinder and his three children Jeffrey Buchbinder and his wife Natasha Darius, Adam Buchbinder and his wife Carin Powell, and Shelley Buchbinder and her partner Andrew Drumm. A graveside service was held on Thursday February 24th 2022, with Fire Department honors rendered by Dayville Fire Company. To leave a condolence for the family please visit www.potterfuneralhome.com

At the time of his passing, my father was an active Emergency Medical Technician and Emergency Medical Services Instructor, teaching an Emergency Medical Responder class at Windham High School. One of his passion projects was provisioning a medical rehabilitation unit for firefighters, which was completed by the members of his department, designated as S-263, and brought into service on July 31st, 2022.

He was the catalyst behind the creation of opensource medical practice management and opensource billing software, and hated vulture-like practices of the medical insurance and billing industries. He was one of the last physicians in the area to offer regular house calls (of which I have fond memories during my childhood on the weekends), and provided medical care for the local First Nations tribes well before they had casinos or funding for their members – not because he had to, but because it was the right thing to do.

He believed that if you stood by and witnessed an injustice without doing something, that you were culpable; he lived his life defending those who could not defend themselves.

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