Help Provide Free Care
Your gift helps RAM provide free dental, vision, and medical services to people in need.
At one point in her career, Dr. Catherine Gilreath was the only physician delivering babies in Sevier County, Tennessee.
She had grown up nearby, one of several children in a small house. After high school, she attended the University of Tennessee and earned her medical degree in Memphis in 1962, during a time when few women pursued careers in medicine.
She returned to East Tennessee and became the first female resident at The University of Tennessee Medical Center. She later served families throughout Knox and Sevier counties as an OB-GYN.
The work required knowledge, discipline, and long hours. It also gave Dr. Gilreath a direct way to practice something that would remain important to her throughout her life: helping others.
A life of service
Dr. Gilreath retired from medicine in 1988 and turned her attention to real estate investment and philanthropy. She supported education, conservation, and organizations serving people in need. She also shared those opportunities with others, encouraging friends and members of her community to help where they could.
Remote Area Medical was among the organizations she chose to support.
Support This Story
Your gift helps RAM continue providing free care to people in need.
Beginning in 2018, Dr. Gilreath made personal gifts to RAM. She later gave through a donor-advised fund. Before her death in 2023, she made another decision that would extend her support far beyond her lifetime. She included RAM in her estate plans.
Her estate gift established the Catherine Gilreath Endowment Fund, creating a lasting source of support for RAM’s work.
In 2026 alone, Dr. Gilreath’s legacy has provided more than $479,000 worth of dental, vision, and medical care to more than 825 RAM Patients across the country.
Those numbers help measure the size of her generosity. The purpose of the fund explains its reach. It will continue helping RAM deliver free dental, vision, and medical care to people who otherwise struggle to obtain it.
Care that continues
At a RAM Clinic, an estate gift becomes something physical.
It becomes a dental chair, sterilized instruments, and a volunteer provider relieving a patient’s pain. It becomes an eye exam and a pair of prescription glasses. It becomes time with a medical professional for someone who has delayed care because of cost.
The people receiving that care may never have known Dr. Gilreath. They may never know her name. But her decision still reaches them.
That is the practical power of a legacy gift. A person can identify the work that mattered during their lifetime and make provisions for that work to continue.
For Dr. Gilreath, helping others was a way of life. She practiced it as a physician. She practiced it through philanthropy. Through the endowment she created, she continues to practice it now.
Make a plan for what matters
August is Make-a-Will Month, an opportunity to create an estate plan or review one that may no longer reflect your circumstances and priorities.
A will can help protect your family, clarify your wishes and direct your assets according to your values. It can also provide for organizations whose work you want to continue.
If you would like to create or update your will, Remote Area Medical offers a free online planning resource through FreeWill.
Including RAM in an estate plan does not require a gift of a particular size. Donors may leave a specific amount, designate a percentage of an estate or name RAM as a beneficiary of a will, trust, retirement account, life insurance policy, donor-advised fund or other asset.
Estate planning is personal, and donors should make decisions in consultation with their families and professional advisors.
If you have already included RAM in your plans, we would be grateful for the opportunity to thank you and understand how you would like your future gift to be used. Sharing your intentions with RAM is non-binding, and you may change them at any time.
For a confidential conversation, contact:
Angie John
Planned Giving Specialist
Remote Area Medical
[email protected]
865-500-8587
Dr. Gilreath spent much of her life caring for people in East Tennessee. Years after she delivered her last baby and stepped away from medical practice, the work continues. Somewhere, a patient sits down in a RAM dental, vision, or medical chair and receives care because she planned ahead.
