Bertram Williams is one of the finalists for the 2014 Health Care Heroes Lifetime Achievement award. To read about the other finalists, click here and here.

From treating wounded soldiers to sharing his personal harvest, R. Bertram Williams Jr., 94, just keeps on giving.

Born on the Fourth of July – one of four family members to hold that distinction – Williams has remained a venerated figure in Wilmington’s medical community for decades. He helped lead the drive for a modern regional hospital, built a respected specialty practice and worked to assure quality care for patients, regardless of income.

The son of a downtown merchant, Williams earned his medical degree at Vanderbilt University before being assigned to the Second Marine Division during World War II. He applied his medical skills at Saipan and Okinawa and aided shipmates after a Japanese kamikaze attack.
After a stint in Korea, Williams returned to the Port City in 1951 to open a surgical practice at 308 N. Third St.

“I had a very difficult time getting started,” he remembers, eventually rising at 5 and going home at 9 as his practice grew. “I didn’t call it a job, I called it a way of life.” 

With his surgical partners, Horace Moore Jr. and Ellis Tinsley Sr., the practice absorbed costs for uninsured patients.

“I’d come home at night and have all sorts of vegetables and fresh oysters and things on my back door, and so did Dr. Williams,” said Tinsley, who also remembers how the three traveled to Burgaw at night on unpaved roads to perform surgery.

When funding for a new medical center to replace the aging James Walker Memorial Hospital stalled, Williams stepped into the limelight.

With a bond issue passed – “It just barely squeaked by,” he recalls – Williams surveyed the site on horseback and deemed it “the perfect spot for the hospital,” said a friend, retired pediatrician Frank Reynolds. Williams’ saddle remains on display at New Hanover Regional Medical Center as a personal tribute.

With the opening of New Hanover Regional Medical Center in 1967, Williams, Moore and Tinsley moved their practice, Wilmington Surgical Associates, to Medical Center Drive.

Williams also served at various times as the hospital’s chief of staff, as a trustee and board chairman, helping to define standards of care.

He also played a leading role in creating the charitable foundation that helps provide ongoing financial support for the facility, which receives no local tax dollars. And he’s made time for other causes close to his heart.

When he leased space in a property he owned to one of Domestic Violence Shelter and Services Inc.’s legacy agencies, the rent did not make it far.

“Whatever they paid me, I would donate back to them,” he said.

Retired since 1991, Williams keeps busy by planting corn and soybeans and tending to fruit trees.

“Several hundred people come and go each year and get everything they want,” son Bert said of his father’s largesse. “He does get great enjoyment out of sharing everything that he grows.”
Respected and praised as he nears 100, Bertram Williams Jr. continues to reap what he sows.