As a boy in Pakistan, Khalid Mahmud recalled his mother saying that he would grow up to become a doctor. He did, becoming board certified in four disciplines — internal medicine, hematology, oncology and anti-aging medicine — and serving as the first medical director of what is now the Hubert H. Humphrey Cancer Center at North Memorial Medical Center.

Mahmud also was chief of medicine and medical director of oncology at North Memorial and a founding board member of the N.C. Little Memorial Hospice in Edina. He started two medical companies that brought health care to people in their homes and a third that was believed to be the state's first anti-aging practice.

"Not many doctors form their own companies, and he formed three," said Harold Londer, a doctor who worked with Mahmud for more than 25 years in the oncology department at North Memorial. "He was a well-respected physician with an excellent reputation. He touched a lot of patients. He was a visionary, a very unique person."

Mahmud, 76, died Oct. 22 of pulmonary fibrosis following coronary bypass surgery earlier this year.

He was born in Gujrat, Pakistan, in 1938 and graduated from King Edward Medical College in Lahore. After completing his residency in New York and a brief stop in New Orleans, Mahmud arrived in Minneapolis in 1965. He completed fellowships at the University of Minnesota and the Veterans Hospital. He opened a private practice in Minneapolis in 1972 and joined Minneapolis Medical Specialists and North Memorial in 1975.

At 15, while still in Pakistan, Mahmud had typhoid fever and was treated by a doctor who came to his home. That memory stayed with him and in the late 1980s was the inspiration for CareVan, a company through which he and nurses made house calls using a medically equipped van. Later he pioneered the idea of home chemotherapy when the company was renamed Medisys. His work in home care earned him a five-page tribute in the May 1992 edition of Caring Magazine.

In his 50s, Mahmud contracted a blood disease that forced him to leave medical practice. But he continued helping people. In 1993, he formed American TeleCare Inc. and wrote a peer-reviewed journal article about seeing patients remotely. In the early 2000s, at age 65, Mahmud turned his interest to aging and founded Innovative Directions in Health, an Edina clinic that focuses on using bioidentical hormone replacement to keep people healthy and delay the effects of old age.

"He started the businesses as a way to help people," said his wife of 38 years, Marilyn, of Hopkins. "He was always thinking of ways to help people. He wanted to be remembered as a man who did his job and did it right, and that is what he did."

Mahmud was instrumental in the mid-1990s in getting the state's first licensed residential hospice established, said Bob Solheim, director of the N.C. Little Memorial Hospice.

"His vision and advice and encouragement over the months and years of planning was invaluable," Solheim said. "It was easy to be a naysayer back then, but he said, 'We can do this.' "

During his 35-year career, Mahmud was a fellow of the American College of Physicians and board member of the American Academy of Home Care Physicians and the American Telemedicine Association.

When not seeing patients, Mahmud treasured time with his family, playing golf and trips to his Wisconsin cabin, family members said.

Besides his wife, Mahmud is survived by sons Shawn, of Minneapolis, Jeff, of Hopkins, and Adam, of St. Paul; brothers Masud, of Pakistan, and Khawer, of Maple Grove; sisters Sajida and Sikandra, of Pakistan, and Samina, of Cincinnati, and three grandchildren. Services have been held.