And then his beloved wife, Ronny, died of pancreatic cancer in March 2014. Little more than a decade later, in August 2024 he noticed something amiss and diagnosed himself with pancreatic cancer before tests confirmed his suspicions.<\/p>\n
Dr. Zinner was 80 when he died in his Coral Gables, Fla., home on Saturday<\/a>.<\/p>\n When Ronny was being treated, he recalled in June, \u201cI went from being a provider to being the caregiver, and one of the hardest things that I had to do during her illness was to try to separate being the husband vs. the physician.\u201d<\/p>\n At one point her oncologist, one of his dear friends, \u201cessentially told me, \u2018Zinner, back off \u2014 you\u2019re the husband, you\u2019re not the physician here,\u2019 \u201d he said.<\/p>\n Pivoting to his own diagnosis, Dr. Zinner added: \u201cFast forward, that same carryover is now my, I won\u2019t say major issue, but it is an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n And while \u201cit\u2019s an exaggeration to say it\u2019s a struggle,\u201d Dr. Zinner said, \u201cI have to spend time separating being the patient and listening to my doctors \u2014 but also being very knowledgeable about the details of this illness.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time of the interview, he had already lived through fraught moments in treatment. Pancreatic cancer is known for being aggressive.<\/p>\n \u201cI know how this movie ends, don\u2019t get me wrong,\u201d he said. \u201cI absolutely know how this movie ends. But I\u2019m looking for options, and a plan. And the opportunity for hope.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout his career, he experienced cases when the clouds of cancer\u2019s finality parted \u2014 sometimes briefly, sometimes for a decade or more.<\/p>\n He often told a story, from his early years, of a prominent Baltimore lawyer whose esophageal cancer had spread to his liver. The lawyer\u2019s other doctors said nothing could be done. His health had deteriorated to where he couldn\u2019t swallow.<\/p>\n A then-young Dr. Zinner asked: \u201c \u2018What can I do for you?\u2019 And he literally said, \u2018I\u2019d like to be able to have a decent meal with my family at my favorite restaurant in Baltimore.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n I can fix that, Dr. Zinner thought, and he performed \u201ca very aggressive operation\u201d that allowed his patient to enjoy that dinner. They parted ways after the operation, or so Dr. Zinner thought.<\/p>\n The following New Year\u2019s Day, \u201cout of nowhere I received a bottle of Dom Perignon\u201d from the lawyer with a note \u201cessentially saying, \u2018I\u2019m still here.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n Like clockwork,<\/b> a bottle of Dom Perignon arrived each Jan. 1, and Dr. Zinner and Ronny joined the lawyer and his family for their annual dinner at his favorite Baltimore restaurant to celebrate surviving for 20 years after every doctor but Dr. Zinner had said nothing could be done.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s a story I\u2019ve been telling for a very long time,\u201d Dr. Zinner said.<\/p>\n \u201cI tell that story to patients who don\u2019t feel they have any hope,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd I say, \u2018We just don\u2019t know, and so we\u2019ll do the best we can in this in-between stage.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n If life itself is an in-between stage bridging birth and death, Dr. Zinner did the best he could to also fill it with experiences above and beyond his high-profile career.<\/p>\n He was an ardent fisherman, once landing a 400-pound tuna. \u201cThere\u2019s no place you can go fishing that isn\u2019t beautiful,\u201d he told the Globe in 2005.<\/p>\n After he married Ronny in 1994, she told him: \u201cWell, Mike, if you really want a decent meal, you missed that part of my life. We\u2019re going to have to send you to chef school and you\u2019re going to have to learn to do it yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n