Life Income Gifts Provide Flexibility in Changing Circumstances
From her birthplace in China to Advance, North Carolina, and through a successful career in teaching, seeing patients and conducting research, neonatologist Kathy King, MD '62, has seen the vital importance of help and inspiration from others.
She has also recently seen the advantages of structuring her estate planning such that as circumstances in life change, a gift can work differently for the benefit of the donor as well as for Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist.
Having been a scholarship recipient and researcher, King wanted to help support those areas. She established two endowments to be funded by Charitable Remainder Trusts, one for MD scholarships and the other to support exploratory research by residents, fellows and junior faculty. At the time of her original gift, the agreement was designed to produce income to be paid to her for her lifetime, and afterwards to be added to her endowments at Wake Forest School of Medicine.
This year, King and her advisors concluded that she no longer needed the income from her CRUTs (Charitable Remainder Unitrusts), so she took advantage of the flexibility of the gift arrangement, dissolving one of her CRUTs. Because she took this step and the value of her testamentary trust had grown substantially, her two endowed funds have become fully endowed and operational now, during her lifetime.
King's Planning Carries Out Her Life Lessons
King's history taught her the importance of investing in others and the importance of sound financial decisions. Her family was displaced when the Japanese occupied what is now known as Beijing before World War II, and she began university studies in Taiwan. With the help of a Baptist missionary's church in Durham, N.C., and another church in Greensboro, King left Taiwan and completed her undergraduate studies on a full scholarship at Meredith College.
King says her medical school years and residency were characterized by hard work and all-night rotations every other night, and she remembers going through years of extreme frugality with her good friend and roommate, Caryl Guth, MD '62.
King values the challenges she encountered by working in hospitals her whole life as the true teacher-scholar- practitioner—teaching, conducting research and seeing patients. Throughout her 22-year service with Long Island Jewish Medical Center, she held numerous academic appointments, including at Stony Brook University Medical Center, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and others. Before that, she worked in Cleveland with an affiliate of Case Western Reserve University.
When King and her husband, Louis Li, now deceased, decided to retire and leave New York, they wanted to make sure they were near a high-quality medical center, so the move to the Winston-Salem area was a natural choice. Louis had significant health issues, and the couple was immediately pleased with the care he received from Hal Atkinson, MD, and others at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist's Sticht Center on Aging.
"I am happy that we were able to adapt my estate plan so that my gifts could be put to work much sooner than we originally anticipated," King says. "I enjoy knowing that students are pursuing their medical degrees and that residents are participating in exploratory research that will make them more thoughtful physicians."
King hopes that given the high quality of training and research at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, her support of scholarships and exploratory research for current students and fellows will inspire them to select general programs such as geriatrics or primary care for their career interests.
Through her active generosity, King is a powerful champion for the students, and for the school and medical center that has been so fundamentally important throughout her life and career.
Information contained herein was accurate at the time of posting. The information on this website is not intended as legal or tax advice. For such advice, please consult an attorney or tax advisor. Figures cited in any examples are for illustrative purposes only. References to tax rates include federal taxes only and are subject to change. State law may further impact your individual results. California residents: Annuities are subject to regulation by the State of California. Payments under such agreements, however, are not protected or otherwise guaranteed by any government agency or the California Life and Health Insurance Guarantee Association. Oklahoma residents: A charitable gift annuity is not regulated by the Oklahoma Insurance Department and is not protected by a guaranty association affiliated with the Oklahoma Insurance Department. South Dakota residents: Charitable gift annuities are not regulated by and are not under the jurisdiction of the South Dakota Division of Insurance.