LEGACY IMPACT
Sabates Family Gives Back to UMKC and the Community
Donation to UMKC Healthcare Delivery and Innovation Building will help elevate care, education and research in the region
BY: STACY DOWNS
Nelson and Rachael Sabates at the Healthcare Delivery and Innovation Building Celebration at the Diastole Scholars' Center in September 2024.
In September, UMKC Chancellor Mauli Agrawal thanked Nelson Sabates (B.A. ’83/M.D. ’86), his wife, Rachael, and their children for their multimillion-dollar pledge contribution, the largest alumni donation the UMKC School of Medicine has received, to the university’s largest capital project to date: the five-story, 160,000-square-foot Healthcare Delivery and Innovation Building in the UMKC Health Sciences District.
“This building represents the future of healthcare in Kansas City,” said Sabates, who also is a professor and chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at UMKC. “My wife and I made this decision to help improve healthcare and health outcomes for our community. We hope others are inspired by this vision and will join us in creating an ever-growing and vibrant UMKC Health Sciences District.”
Inside the building will be UMKC School of Medicine simulation labs, UMKC School of Dentistry patient clinics, a UMKC biomedical engineering collaboration space, the UMKC Health Equity Institute and the NextGen Data Science and Analytics Innovation Center, also known as dSAIC.
Also inside the building, the Nelson and Rachael Sabates Family name will grace the terrace and grand lobby.
Nelson Sabates credits his parents as his role models, each teaching him valuable life lessons. From his father, Felix N. Sabates Sr., M.D., who founded the UMKC School of Medicine Department of Ophthalmology and was also a professor, he learned the importance of work ethic, integrity and self-worth.
From his mother, Carmen Celia Sabates, he learned the value of philanthropic engagement. She tirelessly volunteered for the betterment of the community through organizations including the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and Great Plains SPCA. She passed in 2024.
Nelson Sabates and Alexander Norbash (B.A. '85, M.D. '86), dean of the UMKC School of Medicine at the Healthcare Delivery and Innovation Building groundbreaking ceremony.
DEEP UMKC ROOTS
There are three generations of Sabates UMKC alumni and current students from the family lineage of Nelson Sabates (B.A. ’83/M.D. ’86), who graduated from the prestigious six-year accelerated UMKC School of Medicine B.A./M.D. program. This family of Roos includes his uncle, Cesar L. Sabates, DDS (School of Dentistry, 1975); his cousin, Cesar R. Sabates Jr., DDS (School of Dentistry, 1987); and his sons, Nelson Sabates Jr. (attended) and Spencer Sabates (current student).
The Sabates family’s relationship with UMKC began with Nelson’s father, Felix N. Sabates Sr., M.D., the founder of the Department of Ophthalmology at the UMKC School of Medicine and the Sabates Eye Center in Kansas City. Advancements in vision research and care have a sustained commitment of support at the university through the Felix and Carmen Sabates Missouri Endowed Chair in Vision Research, established 19 years ago by Nelson in his parents’ honor for all of their work.
Nelson sustains his engagement with the university through professional and volunteer commitments, including his six-year service as a UMKC Foundation board director; an event co-chair with his wife, Rachael Sabates, for the School of Medicine’s 25th and 50th anniversary celebrations; the current chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at the UMKC School of Medicine; and the president of the UMKC Research Foundation.