Each year, the UMKC School of Medicine’s Take Wing Award honors an alumnus or alumna who has demonstrated excellence in his or her chosen field and exceeded the expectations of peers in the practice of medicine, academic medicine or research. This spring, that distinction belongs to Nelson Sabates (B.A. ’83/M.D. ’86), whose four decades of dedication to UMKC, University Health and the Kansas City community have helped shape the university’s present and future.

“I’m tremendously honored and humbled to receive this award,” Sabates said. “I’ve spent many years walking into the medical school and seeing the Take Wing monument and looking at all the incredible people who have received this award, and for me to be now one of them is a tremendous honor.”

Sabates will receive the School of Medicine’s highest alumni honor while delivering the E. Grey Dimond, M.D., Take Wing Lecture at noon on May 14 at the School of Medicine. He will also make a speech to the graduating class during the hooding ceremony later that evening.

“To say that Dr. Sabates has ‘exceeded the expectations of peers in the practice of academic medicine’ would be an understatement,” wrote Charlie Shields, president and chief executive officer of University Health, in his nomination letter. “Through the years, his passion and energy have never waned. He is just as committed to advancing eye care, research, UMKC, University Health, the Health Sciences District and a wide variety of nonprofit organizations locally and nationally as he was decades ago.”

Few people have had such a longstanding front row view of Sabates’ work as Dean Alexander Norbash (B.A. ‘85/M.D. ’86), who was classmates with him in high school and through medical school, graduating the same year.

“He has been an incredible leader at UMKC and University Health, a brilliant physician-surgeon, and a successful entrepreneur,” Norbash said. “Nelson is the shining example of a Take Wing awardee: He has flown far and added immeasurable luster to our beloved school."

Sabates’ connection to UMKC runs deep, beginning even before he entered the university’s prestigious six-year accelerated B.A./M.D. program. His father, Felix N. Sabates Sr., M.D., who founded the UMKC School of Medicine Department of Ophthalmology, was also a professor.

“He was thrilled when I got into the medical school,” Sabates said. “I kind of followed in his footsteps. He started the Department of Ophthalmology, and I came in and joined the department 36 years ago, and have been chairman there for 20 years, and have continued the legacy of involvement at the medical school and at University Health.”

Nelson’s enrollment at UMKC in the mid-1980s marked the continuation of a family legacy that now spans three generations of UMKC alumni and students.

“I had an uncle and a cousin who went to the dental school, and my son just got his MBA at the Bloch School of Management,” Sabates said. “We've always had a very strong connection with UMKC, with the Health Sciences District, and I'm hoping that that all of my children, in one way or another, get involved with UMKC, because UMKC is truly a gem for the city. It's gratifying to see that the community is finally realizing what we have and what we can build upon.”

Sabates maintains his engagement with the university through professional commitments, including in his role as a professor and chair of the Department of Ophthalmology, president of the UMKC Research Foundation and director of the UMKC Vision Research Center.

In his nomination letter, Mark Steele, M.D., executive chief clinical officer of University Health and UMKC School of Medicine associate dean, remarked on Sabates’ instrumental role in founding the Vision Research Center — the Department of Ophthalmology’s research arm — in 2007.

“Under his leadership, it has grown to an interdisciplinary center focused on both basic science and translational eye research,” Steele said. “The center has received millions of dollars in extramural funding, and Dr. Sabates has served as principal investigator and co-investigator of several important multicenter clinical trials. He has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications, books and book chapters, all of very high quality, and many with significant clinical impact on the field.”

Not only has Sabates influenced the field of ophthalmology during his career, but he has also poured back into the school that helped him get where he is now. Most recently, he has taken on the role of co-chair of the UMKC Blue & Bold fundraising campaign committee along with his wife Rachael.

“I have always been somebody that if you've been fortunate enough to be successful, you should give back to either the people or the institutions that helped you be successful,” he said. “UMKC has always been a very big part of who I am. And still to this day, many of the things that I learned in medical school I still use, many years later. The teachers that I had, the training that I had, it prepared me to be successful.”

This mindset of generosity is what led to Sabates and his family pledging a multimillion-dollar contribution, the largest alumni donation the UMKC School of Medicine has received, to the university’s largest capital project to date: the $145 million, five-story, 160,000-square-foot Healthcare Delivery and Innovation Building in the UMKC Health Sciences District.

The building will include UMKC School of Medicine simulation labs, UMKC School of Dentistry patient clinics, a UMKC biomedical engineering collaboration space, the UMKC Health Equity Institute and the NextGen Data Science and Analytics Innovation Center, also known as dSAIC.

“I was very excited to help out and fulfill that vision of what we want to do,” Sabates said. “And the new building is hopefully just the first of many in the Health Sciences District.”

Sabates holds a vision for a future where the district continues to expand and solidify the university’s impact in the area.

“We are a big academic medical center, and we are Kansas City's university,” he said. “What I want to see for the future is that the new building will be the engine, the catalyst, for continuing development in the Health Sciences District and will bring in other research initiatives, other medical buildings and new entrepreneurial activity, and make the whole Health Sciences District just one big academic and professional healthcare center.”

While Sabates hopes his donations will help grow the presence of the School of Medicine in the city, he is also hoping his contributions can help inspire other alumni to donate as well.

“I think it's important for all of us to pay it forward,” Sabates said. “All of us who have graduated from the medical school, pharmacy school, law school and everything else — we've been successful because of where we started. And I think we should all give back to the university, because that's why we've been able to succeed. This was our launching pad, this is where we started and what gave us the skills to be successful.”

Be Blue. Be Bold. 

To learn more and get involved, visit go.umkc.edu/bold