Philanthropy Update

Ercell Tate, PA-C ’73, and Linda Tate received the 2022 IDEA Award- Winston-Salem from the N.C. Triad Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals during an event honoring annual National Philanthropy Day last November.

The IDEA Award honors inclusion, diversity, equity and access in philanthropy. The Tates were nominated by Wake Forest University School of Medicine, where Ercell graduated in the PA Class of 1973. In 2020, the Tates honored the memory of their son André by establishing the Tate PA Scholarship, which supports inclusion and diversity in the Wake Forest PA program.

Ercell served as a U.S. Army paramedic during the Vietnam War, and Linda trained as a nurse. Following his service, Ercell became one of the Wake Forest PA program’s first graduates and its first African American student. He helped found the American Academy of Physician Assistants and the North Carolina Academy of Physician Assistants, which he led as president, becoming the first African American and the first Wake Forest PA graduate to do so. He has also supported the PA program by serving as a preceptor.

Alexandra Thomas, MD, FACP, was celebrated as the Williams Family Chair in Breast Oncology during an investiture ceremony in October 2022.

Thomas specializes in breast cancer as professor of hematology and oncology with Wake Forest University School of Medicine and as a hematologist/oncologist with Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist’s Comprehensive Cancer Center.

In funding the chair, the Williams family extended its long- standing support of Wake Forest Baptist and Wake Forest University. James “Jimmy” Glenn, was a lifetime member of the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center board, and he and his wife, Sara, were benefactors of Wake Forest Baptist for more than three decades. In 1996, they established the Glenn Family Endowment for Excellence, which supports research and training initiatives in the Comprehensive Cancer Center, in part to honor Sara’s experience with breast cancer.

Thomas joined the Comprehensive Cancer Center in 2016 and serves as the leader of the Breast Cancer Disease- Oriented Team and co-leader of the Breast Cancer Center of Excellence. Her research over the last decade has advanced promising laboratory work quickly to patients to effectively treat breast cancers as well as to find ways to mitigate side effects of cancer treatments. Her academic work has involved both investigator-initiated and multi-institution clinical trials.

Her commitment to building public support toward a world with less suffering from cancer was acknowledged in 2019 when she was named Advocate of the Year by the American Society of Clinical Oncology for her work with public officials.

Alexandra Thomas, MD (left) with Julie Ann Freischlag, MD, at the investiture ceremony for the Williams Family Chair in Breast Oncology.

Sean R. Rudnick, MD, was named the inaugural Jack L. Levin Professor in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in a ceremony in January.

Since joining the school’s faculty in 2016, Rudnick has served as medical director of hepatology, associate program director for the gastroenterology fellowship and director of the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Wilson Disease Center of Excellence. He participates as attending physician for the inpatient liver transplant service at Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte and provides continuing outpatient post-transplant care to patients living in the regions around Winston-Salem.

In medical education, he has developed and implemented both didactic and clinical experiences for medical students, residents and fellows. His research has focused predominantly on the complications of liver disease, and he has cultivated a national reputation in rare diseases including Wilson disease and the hepatic porphyrias, allowing him to participate in funded research through the National Institutes of Health.

Levin, who died in 2019, was a businessman who suffered debilitating effects from Wilson disease that went undiagnosed for years. The disease is a genetic disorder in which excess copper builds up in the body and affects the brain and liver. Levin developed symptoms, such as slurred speech, trembling and a slow, disjointed gait, when he was in his 30s. It took many years before he was diagnosed and began treatment.

His experience made him determined to educate the public about the disease. He later met Kenneth L. Koch, MD, professor of gastroenterology and hepatology at the School of Medicine, and the two developed a close bond that led to the creation the Wilson Disease Center of Excellence at Wake Forest Baptist.

“Jack struggled with his liver, but he always had a generous heart,” Koch said. “Through his tremendous support through the endowments of the professorship and lectureship in his mother’s name, our liver program is stronger and can advance in the future with the energy, vision and leadership of Dr. Rudnick.”

In addition to funding the Levin Professorship, he was a major contributor to the school’s Vardaman Buckalew Chair in Nephrology and helped establish the Stella P. Levin Lectureship to educate the medical community about Wilson disease and other metabolic diseases of the liver.

Sean R. Rudnick, MD, is joined by (from left) Kenneth L. Koch, MD; Kris Moon, a family friend of Jack Levin and daughter of JoAnn Faulkner; and JoAnn Faulkner, Levin’s former assistant, at the investiture of the Jack L. Levin Professor in Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

Dana Winn, MD ’08, House Staff ’11, credits her attendance at Wake Forest University and Wake Forest University School of Medicine to generous scholarships she received. Originally from the Stokes County, N.C., town of Lawsonville, Winn benefited from the George Foster Hankins Scholarship for her undergraduate degree, while for medical school she was a recipient of the Roena and Petro Kulynych Scholarship.

Not only is Winn a double graduate of Wake Forest University who completed her residency at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, she is also the first woman in her family to attend college.

“Financially, I wouldn’t have been able to attend Wake Forest without those scholarships, and I probably wouldn’t be a doctor today,” she explains.

Her interest in medicine began as a child. “I had an aunt who had cancer, and she passed away when I was 8.” Winn recalls that watching how her aunt was treated compelled her interest in becoming a doctor. But her path from her undergraduate degree in biology to medical school was not straightforward.

“I took two years off between undergrad and medical school,” she shares. “I did a variety of jobs – environmental biology research in the Galapagos, managed an apartment complex, got my Emergency Medical Technician certification – but I thought something was missing.”

Winn had enjoyed working as an EMT, but she felt it wasn’t enough. “I appreciated the time to try other things and see what I could be good at, but I decided it was time to do what I said I wanted to do.”

Winn entered medical school at Wake Forest with an interest in surgery, but during her studies, she fell in love with family medicine. Today, she is a board-certified family physician practicing with Atrium Health Primary Care One Health Family Medicine in Clemmons, N.C.

Among the ways that the mother of two gives back to her community is by actively teaching and mentoring medical students. Her ongoing aim is to contribute to the wellbeing of North Carolina health care. To that end, she has returned to school for a master’s in health care administration. She hopes to pair her master’s degree with her work at Atrium Health One Health, which aims to revolutionize how people think about and value primary care.

Says Winn, “My husband and I agree, we want to give back to people who want to go to Wake Forest and stay in the community – both financially and also by our presence and availability.”

Learn more about scholarships and how to leave a legacy.