Estate Gift From Former Doctor Brings More Than $500,000 to School of Medicine
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. –Nov. 29, 2010 – Adam B. Denison Jr., M.D., a doctor who completed his residency and later worked at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, has bequeathed more than $500,000 to Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
For years, Denison guarded his privacy and lived in a modest home at 2034 Queen Street in Winston-Salem. He died on Sept. 23, 2009, at age 88, following several years of declining health. Although he donated a modest amount of money to Wake Forest Baptist and the School of Medicine during his lifetime, his estate plan and the residence he left behind has provided the school with $568,053.72 for unrestricted use. The transactions involving the assets from the home and the estate gift were completed this fall.
“Gifts like these are sometimes surprising and always inspiring,” said Norman D. Potter, vice president of development and alumni affairs at Wake Forest Baptist. “You never know the importance that an individual places on a particular connection with a place like our medical center. The assets that Dr. Denison spent years setting aside and investing will now advance patient care, research and education at Wake Forest Baptist in positive ways that he may never have imagined.”
Denison, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, earned a medical degree from Case Western Reserve University in 1945, and completed his internship at Wake Forest Baptist in 1946. He joined the School of Medicine as instructor of physiology in 1948 and was named associate professor in 1956. Beginning in 1959, Denison served as vice president of Carolina Medical Electronics Inc., which manufactured the square-wave electromagnetic flow meter that he was primarily responsible for developing. The instrument records the rate of blood flow within a vessel.
By the early 1990s, with his health beginning to decline, he expressed interest in leaving his home to the medical center. Denison had no children, and his only sister died before he did, leaving no heirs.
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