Scott Lee Faulkner, MD – devoted husband, father, and grandfather; dedicated parishioner of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church of Franklin, TN; avid supporter of Vanderbilt sports; perpetual student of life, family, and the human condition; and faithfully ardent dog parent – passed peacefully on to the next stage of his continuing education on Wednesday, October 9th, 2024.
He is survived by Katie Louise Faulkner, his wife of 32 years; his children Sarah Ann (Andrew) Loving, Amy Christina Faulkner, Katie Samantha (Bradley) Williams, and Austin Allen Covington (Yumi) Wilson; his grandchildren Eleanor Ann Loving, Lee Alexander Loving, Emily Irene Williams, and Eliot Clare Williams; and his Boston Terrier Beatrice.
Scott was born on June 1st, 1943 to H. Lee and Christina Sutch Faulkner in Towson, Maryland, during the height of World War II. His father was a Baltimore food broker who instilled in Scott the crucial importance of education and life-long learning. Scott took these lessons to heart, attending the Gilman School and Princeton University, where he was a member of men’s acapella groups The Traveling Men and Tiger Tones respectively. He then received his Medical Doctorate from Johns Hopkins University, followed by a residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.
The tumultuous and transformative era of his birth inspired a life-long patriotism and love of his fellow countrymen, leading inevitably to Scott’s enlistment in the U.S. Navy from 1977 to 1979 as a flight surgeon aboard the U.S.S. Saratoga. Following this service, Scott started his own practice in cardio-thoracic and vascular surgery in Montgomery, Alabama. It was through this medical practice that Scott met the love of his life in Katie Austin, and they were married in 1992. For Scott and Katie, this marriage wasn’t only a second chance at lifelong love and devotion, but a beautiful merging of families, the gains of which would come to include grandchildren from both sides who were destined to become a central focus of his happiness, his purpose, and his legacy.
In Katie, Scott found a true life partner; a soulmate on whom he could forever rely and depend, and who would walk through all the highs and lows beside him until his last day. Together, Scott and Katie traveled and travailed, celebrated and grieved, learned, lost, lived, prayed, and endured. Scott continued his surgical practice in Montgomery for 27 years, retiring in 2006 to Franklin, Tennessee.
In true Scott Faulkner fashion, his “retirement” was anything but. In many ways, this closing of a chapter began a new life for Scott, and he poured his intellect and curiosity into a myriad of interests and passions. He dived into his genealogy. He ran two half-marathons. He attended Vanderbilt baseball, basketball, and football games, and brought his grandchildren with him. He traveled to Israel. He became a Stephen Minister through St. Paul’s Church, providing one-on-one attention, care, and ministry to community members suffering through difficult times. He was a Novice in the Third Order of the Society of St. Francis. Scott’s focus as a physician in time transmuted from healing bodies to healing souls, mirroring Scott’s own emerging spiritual education. This is not to say that Scott left physical healing behind (in his retirement, he began a second medical career as a wound care physician in Nashville), but he found ways in which to bring his lifetime of medical knowledge and expertise to bear on healing his community in any ways he could.
He was known among his fellow parishioners as someone who would accompany them to doctor’s appointments, translating for the surgeons and physicians into layman’s terms. As a patient himself later in life, he embodied the characteristic doctor/patient: admirably difficult. Specialists and pathologists would turn sheet-white when they discovered the quiet elderly man they had been peppering with questions and advice was himself a retired surgeon. He always handled their chagrin with the air of a well-meaning but critical professor. Scott’s life began yet again when he became a grandfather.
He would eventually be fortunate enough to claim four grandchildren, each of whom represented the apex of his pride and happiness. Soccer games, ballet and piano recitals, plays, rowing regattas, choir performances… no interest or endeavor his grandchildren could undertake would be missed or uncelebrated. Scott frequently crossed the country to attend these events. Win or lose, his response was always one of praise and encouragement. More locally, Scott was a dedicated “taxi service” for his grandkids. No matter what personal project or research was dominating his attention at the time, all would be dropped if someone needed a pickup from school or a ride to practice. These rides inevitably would include a milkshake or ice cream cone by the end, making his car the preferred mode of transportation among his progeny.
Somehow through all this love and devotion – for spouse, for children, for grandchildren, for community – Scott still had room enough in his heart for his dogs. A lifelong lover of dogs, Scott was rarely apart from one. His and Katie’s dogs traveled nearly everywhere with them, and received the same treatment as a valued family member. Neighbors would likely not recognize Scott on the sidewalk if Beatrice wasn’t walking alongside him on her leash. In the end, despite his Princeton days, his service on an aircraft carrier, or the decades of surgical care, Scott’s most lasting legacy is in his family and in the community he loved and served. It would be an insurmountable task to trace the lives changed and bettered by his involvement, but those beloved by him and who cherish him were ever-present in his final days, which were passed in the company of friends and family.
A celebration of life will be held at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church of Franklin, TN at 11:00 on Friday, October 18th. Visitation will be held prior to the service from 9:00 until 11:00. https://www.williamsonmemorial.com
In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church or Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in memory of Scott.
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