Smith Sch lar Spring / Summer
A Hampton Roads Community Foundation publication
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Drs. Michael and Tiffany Bates are proud parents of Wes.
Orthopedic Surgeon Started as a Nurse Smith Scholar Dr. Michael Bates never expected to make hip and knee replacement his orthopedic specialty. But the gratitude of patients he helped during his orthopedic residency in Charlotte convinced him this was the right specialty for him. “Hearing how life-changing hip and knee replacement is for patients gave me a new lease on life,” says Bates, who graduated from the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 2009. Bates likes using his skills as a surgeon to give patients the mobility they lost through arthritis or accidents. After a five-year residency at Carolinas Medical Center, Bates completed a one-year fellowship in hip and knee replacement at New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery. He joined a practice in Greenville, N.C., but in 2017 returned to Charlotte to work with OrthoCarolina as a hip and knee specialist. He is thrilled to be back in Charlotte and to have the opportunity to work with orthopedic medical residents. Bates, who grew up in South Boston, was a nurse before he became a physician. He earned a diploma from the Danville Regional Medical Center School of Nursing. He worked as a critical care nurse at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in Norfolk before earning a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Old Dominion University in 2005. Participating
We Remember Florence Smith
Florence L. Smith, the daughter of a Norfolk physician, died in 1952. We remember her well at the Hampton Roads Community Foundation as a life-changing philanthropist who continues to help others every day. She does that through her charitable bequest to her community foundation, which created medical scholarships for long-time Virginia residents. So far, Smith has helped about 750 physicians pay for their education. There have been Smith Scholars in medical school every year since 1953, including 15 current students. Smith Scholars have gone on to great careers as practicing physicians in all specialties, researchers, educators, medical missionaries and health department personnel. They have led local, state and national
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Michael Bates, M.D.
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in ODU’s Pre-Health Club helped Bates turn an idea of becoming a physician into action. He enrolled at UVA in 2005 and won a renewable four-year Florence L. Smith Scholarship. “Medical school was extremely expensive, which was daunting. Having the scholarship made it all less terrifying,” Bates recalls. “Also, when you win a C O N T I N U E D P. 3 scholarship it inspires you to be better.”
societies, including the American Medical Association. Through endowment growth, Smith’s original gift of $460,000 to The Norfolk Foundation has multiplied while providing more than $2.5 million in scholarships. Recipients are medical students at Eastern Virginia Medical School, the University of Virginia School of Medicine and Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine (formerly Medical College of Virginia). In 2010 a merger of the Norfolk and Virginia Beach foundations created the Hampton Roads Community Foundation, which administers the Smith Scholarships. Florence Smith created a living memorial that lets her forever shape the lives of both the physicians she helps mold and the patients they serve.
Dr. Jeffery Baker has a special distinction as a Smith Scholar. He was an Eastern Virginia Medical School professor before he was an EVMS medical student. In the early days of EVMS in the 1970s, Baker taught kidney physiology at EVMS for three years. He had earned a biology degree from Xavier University in Ohio, a doctorate in physiology from the University of Cincinnati and completed a University of New Mexico fellowship. But, he wasn’t done with his own education. “I had been thinking about a career evolution for some time and decided to apply to medical school,” he recalls of his move from professor to student. Since he liked the Hampton Roads region and EVMS’ philosophy of community-based medicine, Baker applied to EVMS for medical school and was accepted. During his first year as an EVMS medical student, he continued to teach kidney physiology. Baker remembers it being interesting sitting down as a student and then standing up as a professor “all in the same morning.” The Florence L. Smith Scholarship helped Baker ease the burden of paying for medical school as the married father of
a one-year-old son. The scholarship helped finance his education while his wife Connie worked as a neonatal intensive care nurse at Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters. After graduating from EVMS in 1981, Baker returned to Ohio for residency at the University of Cincinnati General Hospital. He specialized in internal medicine because it fit well with his background in physiology. After completing residency in 1984, he opened a private practice in Dr. Jeffery Baker Cincinnati with two other internal medicine physicians. In 1995 their practice became part of the University of Cincinnati Health System. Baker says transitioning to a career as a physician is the best professional decision he ever made. He hasn’t looked back since starting his career 35 years ago. He feels a sense of personal reward in taking care of people. Although he retired in 2016, he continues to fill in at two university clinics and works part time at a free health clinic. When he’s not working, he enjoys spending time with his wife and family. Now with three adult sons, three grandsons and one grandchild on the way, the Bakers split their time between Ohio and New Mexico. Baker is grateful to his scholarship benefactor Florence Smith. In 2007 he started making an annual gift to her fund and says the scholarship is “something that I won’t forget.”
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Physician’s Career Began as an EVMS Professor
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Jeffrey Baker, M.D.
Smith Scholar Update In 2017 five new Smith Scholars were awarded Florence L. Smith Scholarships and joined 10 returning students whose scholarships were renewed. A new group of medical students will become Smith Scholars this year. New 2017 scholarship recipients were:
In 2017 five Smith Scholars graduated from medical school. They are:
W. Burke Best, M.D. (EVMS) of Virginia Beach, an internal and emergency medicine resident at Virginia Commonwealth University Health System in Richmond.
Nicole G. Byram of Midlothian (UVA)
Jessica G. Johnson, M.D. (EVMS) of Chesterfield County, an emergency medicine resident at Stanford University Hospital/Kaiser Permanente in Stanford, CA.
Reginald Osardu of Woodbridge (VCU)
Andrew Z. Lam, M.D. (UVA) of Fairfax County, a family medicine resident at
Jonathan Taylor-Fishwick of Suffolk (EVMS)
Patrick Melmer, M.D. (UVA) of Fauquier County, a surgery resident at
Lillian K. Waller of Springfield (UVA) Dustin A. Wessells of Accomack County (UVA)
VCU-Fairfax Family Medicine in Fairfax County.
Grand Strand Regional Medical Center in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Ana E. Tucker, M.D. (UVA) of Powhatan County, an internal medicine resident at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore.
Questions about Smith Scholarships? Contact Lynn Watson Neumann, director 2
H a m p to n R oa d s C o m m u n i t y Fo u n dat i o n
Joanna Hackman Harris, M.D.
Clinic Job Led to Public Health Career Dr. Joanna Hackman Harris of Amherst admires Florence Smith, her scholarship benefactor, for two reasons:
in public health.” Her work included once handling the biggest measles outbreak in the United States, environmental health issues and overseeing a clinic with Smith helped Harris graduate debt free from the 10,000 patients. As director, she continued to treat patients University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1964. two days a week, which she says “kept me grounded.” Even after retiring, Harris still worked in a health department Smith’s generosity “made a big difference – especially clinic for several years. to women – because with this scholarship we were Harris grew up in Radford, where her mother was a on equal ground with men,” Harris says. college professor. Her father died when she was nine after being struck by lightning. Equal ground wasn’t always the case As a teenager, she dreamed of becoming a Florence Smith’s for medical students like Harris. At UVA, physician and credits Hollins University with she was one of only two women in her propelling her on that path. By the time she scholarship graduating class of 76 medical students. graduated from the woman’s college, she “made a big difference ” had been accepted at UVA’s medical school, She ended up in a pediatrics residency because she says “that was one of the few won a Smith Scholarship and been awarded and put women areas accepted for females” at the time. a fellowship to study in Germany for a year. Harris, who retired in 2003 after a She was happy when allowed to defer medical “on equal ground 35-year career as director of the Central school and the scholarship for a year while Virginia Health District, discovered her she studied science in Germany. with men.” calling in life while living in Nashville. She Today, Harris lives in Amherst County – Joanna Hackman had deferred residency to care for her first in an 18th-century home she and her Harris, M.D. child while her physician husband Norman husband restored. She enjoys time with finished an internal medicine residency family, which includes four adult children at Vanderbilt University. and eight grandchildren. She volunteers “The Nashville Health Department learned I was there with the League of Women Voters and Blue Ledge Inc., and asked me to run two clinics a week,” she recalls. Harris a Meals on Wheels affiliate. She is often on the road hired a 50-cents-an-hour babysitter and earned $6 an hour delivering nutritious food to rural clients. In February to supplement her husband’s $180 monthly salary. Along she led a Great Decisions program in Lynchburg the way she found her career – working in public health. focused on global health. After finishing a pediatric residency in Nashville, Harris has never forgotten how helpful her Smith Harris moved to Lynchburg, where she joined the health Scholarship was during her four years of medical school. department and her husband opened an internal medicine About five years ago, she started making an annual gift practice. Harris spent her career helping people in to the Smith Scholarship Fund. With her children out of Lynchburg and four surrounding counties lead healthy lives. medical and graduate school and her home renovations She thrived in an environment where “every day complete, she says the time was right “to give more to is different. You never know what is going to happen important causes.”
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Bates says his training and experience as a nurse help him every day as a physician. He values the insight hospital nurses have from being with the same patients for 12 hours and also talking with their FROM
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families. “I make sure the nurses and I communicate.” When he isn’t working Bates enjoys spending time with his wife Dr. Tiffany Bates, an obstetrics and gynecology specialist, and their son, Wes, who was born in August.
of gift planning, at lneumann@hamptonroadscf.org or (757) 622-7951. H a m p to n R oa d s C o m m u n i t y Fo u n dat i o n
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Ana Tucker, M.D.
studying diabetes and digestive and kidney diseases. She spent a year doing research and thinking about where to attend medical school. Tucker ended up back at UVA where she won the Florence L. Smith Scholarship at the Hampton Roads Community Foundation. She says having the scholarship helped alleviate In 2008 Ana Tucker, M.D. was a high school some of the financial burden of medical senior in Powhatan County, Virginia when she school so she could dedicate her life to serving decided to dedicate her life to serving others. others and focus on being the best physician She was inspired by a mission trip to Jamaica, that she could be. Dr. Ana Tucker where she worked with children. During her first year in medical school, Her commitment to service continued during her Tucker worked with medical and nursing students to create I undergraduate years at the University of Virginia and her four Serve, a volunteer service program promoting health years at the UVA School of Medicine. Her efforts led this Smith education, advocacy and clinical services to low-income Scholar to earn not only her M.D. but also the UVA Class of residents. A partnership with the Charlottesville Free Clinic 1954 Community Service Award when she graduated in 2017. and a halfway house created volunteer opportunities for Tucker majored in biology and minored in English literature UVA medical and nursing students. By the time Tucker at UVA and was involved for four years with the Madison House graduated in 2017, I Serve had more than 40 volunteers. It student volunteer center. For two years, she was program is going strong today. director for Hoos Assisting with Life’s Obstacles, which helps Tucker is now a resident in internal medicine at homeless and unemployed people in Charlottesville. Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore. While at UVA, Tucker developed a love for research. She She plans a sub-specialty in oncology. She enjoys being a worked in a pediatric nephrology lab for three years studying physician because it marries her passion for service with the renin–angiotensin system, which controls blood pressure her passion for science. and fluid in the body. She wants to become an oncologist because “you can For a year after graduating from UVA in 2012, she develop deep relationships with patients and help navigate worked in a National Institutes of Health lab in Bethesda, them through the most significant event of their lives.”
Resident Is Committed to a Life of Service
Th a n k s a l s o g o t o :
Thank You!
Donors Amplify Smith’s Legacy
• Smith Scholars and their families who have created their own scholarship funds
at the community foundation: Alfred L. Schulwolf, M.D., Lewis K. Martin, M.D., the late Donald E. Sly, M.D., Ashby Taylor, M.D., and Marshall Taylor, M.D.
• Smith Scholars whose estate plans include bequests for charitable bequests through the
community foundation: Anonymous, Russell D. Evett, M.D., Burton D. Goodwin, M.D., Edward L. Lilly, M.D., Lewis K. Martin II, M.D., the late Donald E. Sly, M.D., the late Ruth B. Weeks, M.D., and Dorothy Urban Wright, M.D.
• Past and current Smith Scholars who gathered in Richmond for a fall 2017 dinner to get to know each other and celebrate Florence Smith’s lasting impact.
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R oa d s C o m m u n i t y Fo u n dat i o n
Photo by Adia Thompson White
The Hampton Roads Community Foundation thanks the 36 Smith Scholars who supported the Florence L. Smith Scholarship Fund in 2017. Their generosity added $45,430 to the fund to help future physicians. The fund has a value of more than $2.4 million. Donations ranged in size from $25 to $12,500. The average gift size in 2016 was $1,261.
Meet 4 of Our Students Current Smith Scholars (from left) Reginald Osardu of VCU, Cassie Turnage of UVA, Ashley DeMoss of EVMS and Kayvon Mobarakeh of VCU. They enjoyed a dinner in Richmond with other Smith Scholars who are current and retired physicians.