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Gift of Vacation Home Provides Family Income for Life

A hallmark of the UR School of Medicine and Dentistry is teaching students to focus on the entire patient, not just the illness.

For ophthalmologist Ronald Cole ’62M (MD), this approach helped him provide the very best care to his patients. After 22 years in retinal surgery and general ophthalmology, Dr. Cole chose to specialize in vision rehabilitation. “I saw it as an opportunity to focus on how the person functions and not just how the eye functions.”

When Dr. Cole and his wife Sheri* returned to Rochester for a class reunion, the couple decided to commemorate the milestone by making a gift to the David and Ilene Flaum Eye Institute.

The Coles gifted a vacation home to a charitable remainder trust. They received an income-tax charitable deduction and avoided a substantial capital-gain tax.

The University will pay Ron and Sheri* income for life and, subsequently, to their children for a term of years.

The Coles’ gift will ultimately establish the Dr. Ronald J. & Charlotte S. Cole Endowed Scholars Fund in support of vision restoration, low vision research, and vision rehabilitation.

The Coles are recognized as founding members of the Wilson Society.