Commitment to care: Legacy gift creates opportunities for future physicians

When Wallace Gleason, MD, enrolled in college, he was not sure medicine would be his life’s calling. He was equally captivated by philosophy, inspired by a professor who spent summers living on a remote Minnesota island. But a love of science and a desire to help others in a practical way—combined with the realities of making a living—steered him toward medicine.

“I liked philosophy and English literature, but medical school gave me the combination of science and helping people that seemed to fit,” says Gleason, who serves as Associate Dean in the Office of Admissions and Student Affairs and is also a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston.

That decision launched a career spanning five decades, from pioneering pediatric gastroenterology to shaping generations of physicians at McGovern Medical School. He gained an early familiarity with medicine through his father, a urologist who joined the U.S. Army as a young physician in World War II, where he worked in field hospitals during the Normandy invasion.

“He did a lot of amputations and tough cases,” Gleason recalls. “Like many veterans, he didn’t like to talk about it much.”

Gleason earned his medical degree at the University of Minnesota and completed a residency at St. Louis Children’s Hospital before entering pediatric gastroenterology—a specialty still taking shape at the time. His academic career began at UT Health San Antonio, where he pursued laboratory research and helped build one of the first pediatric gastroenterology divisions in the country.

His early clinical work involved treating reflux and abdominal pain, but the field changed dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s with the arrival of fiber-optic endoscopy and the expansion of liver transplantation.

“Our field used to be mostly well children with tummy aches,” he says. “Then suddenly, we were caring for very sick kids, including those waiting for liver transplants. It changed everything.”

In 1984, he joined UTHealth Houston to establish the pediatric gastroenterology service at McGovern Medical School. Gleason helped adapt new endoscopic techniques for children, and when Houston became a hub for pediatric liver transplantation, his team cared for patients from across the Southwest.

At the time, Hermann Hospital—now Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center—was still relatively small. As Houston’s health care system expanded, so did pediatric services, and Gleason took pride in seeing patients he once treated as children return as practicing physicians.

Alongside his clinical work, Gleason has devoted himself to medical education. Through his work with the Office of Admissions and Student Affairs at McGovern Medical School, he has interviewed hundreds of applicants and helped students through academic and personal challenges. Those experiences gave him a close view of the financial strain medical students face today.

“The average debt is still well over $100,000, even at state-supported schools like ours,” Gleason says. “That has a huge effect on career choices. Students who might want to go into pediatrics or family medicine sometimes feel pressured to choose higher-paying specialties.”

To help relieve that pressure, Gleason made an estate commitment to create an endowed scholarship covering full tuition for medical students. He hopes the gift will allow future physicians to pursue careers based on passion rather than debt.

“The relative freedom it can give them is enormous,” he says.

For Gleason, the gift reflects gratitude for his own education and confidence in the next generation.

“It’s about giving talented students the ability to become the kind of doctor they want to be,” he says. “That benefits not only them, but every patient they’ll serve over the course of their careers.”