Smith Scholar Spotlight

Percy Wootton, M.D.

Percy Wootton, M.D., a former American Medical Society president, remembers the day in 1953 when Florence L. Smith changed his life. He had just graduated from Lynchburg College and been accepted to the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. But the Nottaway County native had no funds for medical school. Wootton had no money to buy a newspaper either so he headed to a public library to read the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“I saw an announcement about the new Florence Smith medical scholarship and wrote the Hampton Roads Community Foundation that day to ask for an application,” Wootton recalls. He filed the needed paperwork and was awarded $1,000 a year for each of his four years of medical school. The Smith scholarship covered almost all of his expenses.

Wootton was among the first 26 students awarded Smith scholarships. He went on to head the Medical Society of Virginia before becoming president of the American Medical Association in 1997. Wootton has retired from a career in Richmond as a cardiologist. He has served on numerous boards, including the Virginia Commonwealth University Board of Visitors. He currently chairs the board of the Greater Richmond Chapter of the American Red Cross and is on the board of The Scottish Rite Childhood Language Center at Richmond.