<P> In the wake of a 1935 Carnegie Foundation report suggesting the dissolution of two - year medical schools, those schools began to consider alternatives . Meanwhile, the death of Bowman Gray, the president of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in Winston - Salem, also in 1935, led his family to consider how to best make use of $750,000 that he left to be put toward a community cause . The Gray family decided to offer the money to a medical school willing to relocate to Winston - Salem . After the University of North Carolina rejected a chance to obtain the money because it did not want to leave Chapel Hill, Wake Forest's medical school dean, Coy Cornelius Carpenter, in 1939 helped to forge a deal for the funds . In 1941, Bowman Gray School of Medicine opened on the campus of N.C. Baptist Hospital with 75 students, including 45 freshmen and 30 sophomores . </P> <P> The rest of Wake Forest University would follow the medical school to Winston - Salem in 1956, in an effort led by the family of R.J. Reynolds . </P> <P> The school became known for its innovative curriculum and prominent faculty members, including: </P> <Ul> <Li> Camillo Artom, a renowned Italian biochemistry expert who fled Italy to escape fascism, and who, at Wake Forest, worked with lipids in research on atherosclerosis, among other subjects . </Li> <Li> Richard Masland, a professor of psychiatry and neurology who later became director of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness . He encouraged faculty to pursue research grants, which helped the school in its push toward research and growth as an academic medical center . </Li> <Li> James Toole, a neurologist who opened the Stroke Center soon after arriving in 1962 and who wrote a widely used text, Cerebrovascular Disorders . </Li> </Ul>

Wake forest university bowman gray school of medicine winston-salem nc