Dear Friends:
We are sad to announce that Dr. Shirley Terri Bunch, MB, Bchir, BA, MA, MD, 65, of Gainesville, Florida, passed away peacefully at home Friday, after a valiant and courageous three-year fight against cancer. Dr. Bunch was a dedicated member of the Department of Pediatrics and the Division of Pediatric Neurology.
Terri was born in Knoxville, Tenn., on May 20, 1947, to the late Paul and Gladys Bunch. She spent 20 years in the United Kingdom, where she studied medicine at Cambridge University and specialized in pediatric neurology. She returned to the United States 20 years ago to practice at the University of Florida, leaving for a time for private practice in Savannah, Ga., and St. Petersburg, Fla., before returning to Gainesville, becoming assistant professor and director of the residency program.
Terri’s dedication knew no bounds, and drove her to continue to work until her last days, all the while fighting terminal cancer. She loved her patients and her students as if they were her own children, and she loved us, all of us who worked with her. She had a wonderful intuition and an honest and straightforward way of dealing with patients and their parents, which everyone appreciated. She brought her intelligence, her knowledge, compassion and sense of humor into her endeavors, her whole intense and wonderful personhood. She will be missed, but she leaves us with a smile in our hearts for all she meant and all she was to us and she leaves us with a charge to do our part.
She is survived by her husband, Guy David Carter; one son, Chris (Louise) Wells; one grandson, Arthur Wells; and two sisters, Fran Henriques and Teresa Leveque.
Memorial services will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday (Sept. 13), 2012 in the Chapel of Williams-Thomas Funeral Home Downtown, 404 N. Main St., Gainesville. In lieu of flowers, donations should be made to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, Donor Services, P.O. Box 650309, Dallas, TX 75265, or www.komen.org; or to the Sebastian Ferrero Foundation, 105 SW 128th St., Suite 200, Gainesville, FL 32669.
On behalf of the Division of Pediatric Neurology, the Department of Pediatrics, and all who were touched by Terri’s kindness and elegance, our heartfelt thoughts go to Dr. Bunch’s family.