The Medical Alumni Association (MAA) of Wake Forest University School of Medicine presented several awards during its annual MD Alumni Weekend on Friday, May 2, at the Benton Convention Center.
Ann Fleming Beach, MD, Bayard L. Powell, MD, The Honorable Donny C. Lambeth, MBA., Len B. Preslar Jr., MBA., and Nathaniel O. Walcott, MD, MS, were recognized for their achievements and contributions to Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, the community and/or the practice of medicine.
Recipients of these awards are selected each year from nominations submitted to the MAA Nominations and Awards Committee and approved by the MAA Board of Directors.
In addition to the MAA Awards, the Friday night dinner celebrated the M.D. Class of 1975, inducting class members into the Bowman Gray Society to commemorate their 50th anniversary milestone. Each inductee was presented with a hand-crafted medallion bearing the Wake Forest University seal and the likeness of Bowman Gray.
"We extend our heartfelt gratitude to these distinguished honorees for their unwavering commitment and dedication and congratulate them on receiving these prestigious awards,” said Lisa Marshall, chief philanthropy officer and vice president of philanthropy and alumni relations for Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist. “The impactful and enduring contributions of these remarkable individuals have significantly strengthened and elevated our institution, ensuring its continued success. We are confident that the Wake Forest University School of Medicine is well poised for a bright and promising future."
The Distinguished Achievement Award, presented to alumni who have distinguished themselves in the medical profession through patient care, research and leadership, was presented to Ann Fleming Beach, MD.
Beach grew up in Greenville, N.C., and hung around the emergency room at Pitt Memorial Hospital, where her mother, a 1944 graduate of the North Carolina Baptist Hospital School of Nursing, was head nurse. Beach grew up hearing stories about her mother’s student years in Winston-Salem during World War II, and stories of fascinating events in the emergency room.
Beach attended East Carolina University on an academic scholarship, majoring in biology, before going to what was then Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest University. She remained at N.C. Baptist Hospital for her pediatric residency and was certified by the American Board of Pediatrics in 1982.
Initially, she had a small-town pediatric practice in LaGrange, Georgia, followed by an Atlanta HMO practice with Kaiser Permanente. She loved general pediatric practice, getting to know her patients and watching them grow up. She developed expertise in treating child abuse and neglect, testified in court in over 50 cases, developed training programs for law enforcement groups and helped start the child protection program at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. She received the Crystal Gavel Award from Cobb County, Georgia, for her work in this area. She was associate medical director with Kaiser Permanente and sat on Kaiser’s National Quality Board. In the 1990s, hospital medicine became a specialty and Beach helped develop the hospital teams for Kaiser Permanente.
She then spent the rest of her career associated with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, a 700-bed, three-hospital tertiary care pediatric hospital system. She was vice president of quality, specializing in creating evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. She spent the last 20 years of her practice as a pediatric hospitalist at Children’s at Scottish Rite. She lectured at the national Pediatric Hospital Medicine Conference for many years on topics such as the art of diagnosis, diagnostic dilemmas and unusual illnesses in hospitalized children. She served as guest editor for Atlanta Medicine, a magazine that reaches several thousand Atlanta-area doctors.
She was a faculty member at Emory University School of Medicine and Morehouse School of Medicine, instructing medical students and pediatric residents. She is known for her teaching skills, having received the Teacher of the Year Award from Morehouse’s pediatric residents. The 2021 Shaffner Symposium at Children’s Healthcare was given in Beach’s honor, and in 2023, she was named a master clinician at the inaugural Dr. Joseph Snitzer Master Clinician Series.
Since retiring in 2021, she has turned to writing. Her book “Sick Kids: Solving Medical Mysteries in Children” contains 50 short chapters, each sharing the true story of a child who was admitted to the hospital with one diagnosis and went home with a different one. She also writes a blog on medical and medical-adjacent topics.
The Distinguished Faculty Award, presented to individuals for outstanding contributions to the Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist through teaching and research and by demonstrating the highest principles of academic medicine, was presented to Bayard L. Powell, MD, professor and section chief of hematology and oncology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
Powell was born and grew up on a small farm near the town of Wake Forest, North Carolina. He received his bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Duke University and his medical degree from the University of North Carolina. He completed residency training in internal medicine and a fellowship in hematology and medical oncology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He then joined the medical school faculty in 1986 as assistant professor in the department of internal medicine, section on hematology and oncology. He was promoted to associate professor in 1992 and to professor in 1999.
He served as acting chief of hematology and oncology beginning in 1998 and was appointed section chief in 1999. During his career, Powell has trained over 130 fellows in hematology and oncology and has worked with numerous residents in internal medicine as well as medical students, physician assistant students and other trainees. During his tenure as chief, the section grew from 20 to 48 faculty, nine to 15 fellows in training, eight to 47 APPs and about 130 to 250 employees. Research funding for hematology and oncology is currently over $17 million.
Powell’s personal research focuses on developing innovative treatments for patients with leukemias and myelodysplastic syndromes. He has participated in multiple pivotal trials leading to new drug approvals. Early in his career, he participated in clinical trials that established the role of high dose cytarabine in treatments for patients with acute myeloid leukemia. He led an international trial that established arsenic trioxide as a critical component of frontline treatment with acute promyelocytic leukemia, which now has a cure rate of over 95%. Powell has published 13 book chapters and has 220 peer-reviewed publications. He has served on the Leukemia Core Committee of the Alliance of Clinical Trials, a national clinical trials cooperative group, since 1993.
In addition to over 25 years as chief of hematology and oncology, he has held multiple other leadership roles within the institution. Within Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, he has served as leader of the clinical trials program, chair of the protocol review committee, director of the leukemia service, director of apheresis and his current role as associate director for clinical research. In 1996, he became chair of the Piedmont Oncology Association, which has evolved into the Charles L. Spurr Piedmont Oncology Symposium, a twice-yearly regional educational symposium.
Powell’s teaching abilities and enthusiastic engagement with learners is frequently highlighted by students, residents and fellows. He received the Tinsley R. Harrison Faculty Teaching Award in the department of internal medicine in 1989 and has been recognized with a Master Teacher Award in the department of internal medicine seven times.
Powell has also been heavily engaged in the community including the community advisory boards of the Comprehensive Cancer Center and has been honored by patients and families who have developed foundations or other events to support cancer research.
The Distinguished Service Award, presented each year to individuals who have distinguished themselves through outstanding contributions to Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, the community or the practice of medicine, was presented to recipients: The Honorable Donny C. Lambeth, MBA, N.C House of Representatives, 75th District and former president and CEO, North Carolina Baptist Hospital, and Len B. Preslar, MBA, former president and CEO, North Carolina Baptist Hospital.
Lambeth is a native of North Carolina and a lifelong resident of Forsyth County. His professional career spanned 40 years at what is now Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center (North Carolina Baptist Hospital) where he served as chief operating officer for 11 years and was president and CEO for four years. He served as president and CEO of Wake Forest Baptist’s Lexington and Davie medical centers for one year during the merger of the three medical facilities.
As a health care executive, Lambeth’s leadership and knowledge base gained him many recognitions from both the business and private sectors of the state, including the N.C. Health Care Hero Award (2008), Who’s Who among Health Care Executives (2012—six consecutive years), and the Region’s Most Influential Leader by Triad Business Journal (2013—seven consecutive years), among others.
His political career began in 1994 when he was elected to the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Board of Education. His fellow board members elected him board chair during each of his 18 years of service. In 2008, he was named to the North Carolina All-State School Board.
In 2012, Lambeth was elected to the N.C. House of Representatives serving the state’s 75th District. Following his re-election in 2014, he has focused on health care reform and improvements.
Since his first term in office, Lambeth has been the recipient of various awards and recognitions, including: N.C. Baptist Heritage Award (2014), Advocate State Award for Excellence from the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (2016), State Champion Award from the N.C. Association of Registered Nurse Anesthetists (2016), Champion for Health from the N.C. Alliance for Health (2017) and N.C. Governor’s School Foundation Champion Award (2018). He was named Legislator of the Year by the N.C. Association of Local Health Directors (2016), the N.C. Nurses Association (2016), the N.C. Community Health Center Association (2017), BAYADA Home Health Care (2017) and most recently by the N.C. Chapter of the March of Dimes.
At the national level, he was recognized as the 2018 Mental Health Legislative Champion by Mental Health America.
Outside the General Assembly, Lambeth has served through membership on various state and community boards: Forsyth County Hospice and Palliative Care (Trellis), Child Fatality Task Force, Affordable Care Act Study Committee, Mental Health Committee, State Health Coordinating Committee and as board chair of the N.C. Chapter of March of Dimes. He currently serves as a member of myFutureNC and the National Council on Education Reform.
Lambeth’s professional career continues as the current CEO of 437 Logistics, a FedEx contractor in the Winston-Salem area. Lambeth earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from High Point University and an MBA from Wake Forest University.
Preslar’s career at North Carolina Baptist Hospital, which partnered with Wake Forest University School of Medicine to form what is now Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, spanned 38 years of service, beginning while he was a Wake Forest student in 1969. He was the hospital’s vice president of finance for 13 years before becoming president and CEO in 1988. At his retirement in 2007, his 19-year tenure as CEO was the longest of any North Carolina Baptist Hospital president.
In his finance roles, he developed the hospital’s first comprehensive budget and financial planning processes. North Carolina Baptist Hospital achieved national financial performance among the top 5% and an AA-bond credit rating, lowering debt cost and increasing net worth five-fold during his tenure as CEO.
While he was CEO, North Carolina Baptist Hospital developed a 125-bed children’s hospital, a center on aging for complex care of the frail elderly, converted all inpatient rooms to private beds, constructed an outpatient Comprehensive Cancer Center and initiated its AirCare emergency transport service. Notable technology additions included gamma knife, positron emission tomography, radiation simulation therapy, robotics for prescription labeling, digital radiology and anesthesia planning simulation. When Forsyth County’s primary indigent care program was at risk of closing, he negotiated its transfer to North Carolina Baptist Hospital and constructed its Downtown Health Plaza to house indigent primary care.
Throughout his CEO tenure, he sought to strengthen the hospital’s relationship with the medical school and its faculty. He added faculty to the board, engaged faculty in budgetary and capital planning processes, joined the University Healthcare Consortium, initiated developmental technology grants to faculty and expanded the medical center’s array of consolidated administrative functions.
He was the primary author of a new affiliation agreement with the school, designed to align strategic goals and elevate medical center performance. The agreement incorporated noteworthy increases in funding for medical education and an innovative profit share with the school. He personally negotiated a unique institutional relationship with its founding entity, the Baptist State Convention of N.C., achieving organizational independence and enabling North Carolina Baptist Hospital trustees to evolve the organization’s relationship with the school and university as they believed best. Upon his retirement, Preslar was awarded the North Carolina Baptist Heritage Award by the Baptist State Convention.
Following his retirement, he led the development of health care management curriculum at Wake Forest University School of Business, where he was an adjunct professor and distinguished professor of practice. While there, he developed and led an annual, national biotechnology conference and case competition, engaging with medical and MBA biotechnology students and biotechnology companies to promote innovation and entrepreneurship.
Preslar has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Wake Forest University and an MBA in finance from UNC Greensboro. He has served on many professional and community boards, including chair of the N.C. Hospital Association, and board member with N.C. Institute of Medicine, Council of Teaching Hospitals, University Healthcare Consortium, Governor’s Advisory Committee on Cancer Control, Governor’s Task Force on Health Objectives, United Way of Forsyth County, Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce and Forsyth Futures Board. He is a fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives.
The Student Excellence Award, recognizing a fourth-year medical student whose peers believe best demonstrates the qualities needed to become a complete physician — knowledge, compassion and dedication—was presented to Nathaniel O. Walcott, MD.
Originally from East Orange, New Jersey, Walcott grew up being inspired by his father, a dedicated pediatrician who served under-resourced communities for over 30 years. This example of leadership motivated Walcott to pursue a career in medicine to serve his community. Walcott earned his undergraduate degree from Davidson College and completed his master’s degree in biomedical sciences at Wake Forest University. Before entering medical school, he spent two years as a middle school science teacher in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, where he learned the importance of building strong community relationships. Additionally, he worked as an EMT in Philadelphia during the
COVID-19 pandemic, refining his clinical skills and understanding the value of humanism in medicine.
At Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Walcott discovered a passion for mentoring, service and humanism. He has mentored college students aspiring to medical careers through the Mentoring the Pipeline organization, served as the Christian Medical and Dental Association co-president and advocated for health equity in the broader Winston-Salem community. One of his most cherished experiences has been using his teaching skills and medical knowledge to introduce elementary and middle school students at RISE Academy to careers in medicine.
He will soon begin his residency in internal medicine at George Washington University, where he looks forward to creating a lasting legacy of service and compassion for his future patients.