Pediatrician, Wake Forest Pediatrics, PLLC

Sarah is a pediatrician at Wake Forest Pediatrics, PLLC.  After growing up in South Carolina, Sarah graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with highest honors and highest distinction while also being a member of Phi Beta Kappa.  Sarah then graduated, with honors, from UNC School of Medicine where she was a member of Alpha Omega Alpha. She completed an internship in OB- GYN in the DC/Baltimore area and earned her Master’s in Public Health at Johns Hopkins, concentrating in Maternal and Child Health.  Her training then took her to Charleston, South Carolina where she completed her pediatric residency at the Medical University of South Carolina, while her husband, Rick, served in the US Navy, also as a pediatrician.  Rick and Sarah settled in Raleigh in 2002 with their growing family.

From 2012 to 2014, the Gessner family answered God’s call to serve, in Kenya, as medical missionaries.  Although the two years in Kenya were hard but yet incredibly beautiful at the same time, Sarah was blessed beyond measure to serve in this way.  Sarah and Rick’s hearts for missions keeps them returning for shorter trips as frequently as possible.  They are members of Providence Baptist Church where they have been teaching 9th grade Sunday school for the past three years.

Sarah and Rick have three children.  Ted (Trinity Academy Class of 2015), a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill in 2019 has joined the US Navy where he is training to be an Intelligence Officer.  Anna (Trinity Academy Class of 2019) is currently a Park Scholar at NC State University and Emily is a member of the Trinity class of 2022.

Sarah’s Heart for Trinity

Trinity offers a perfect confluence of vibrant Christian faith, superior academics focusing on critical thinking and winsome rhetoric), and a caring community of families, faculty, and staff.  We have truly experienced all three at Trinity Academy.  Our two graduates have been solidly prepared to confidently engage in discussions of faith, history, philosophy and the sciences.  They continue to learn and grow as young adults, spurring us on to learn more and be better ourselves.  I pray this for each child that enters and graduates from Trinity Academy: that they will be lifelong learners who have had the opportunity to “work out their own salvation with fear and trembling” in a place with loving, supportive, and challenging faculty and administration.  I’ll quote a recent text from our daughter at NC State which speaks for itself: “Honestly, Trinity was one of the best things that could have happened to me.  I can’t express how grateful I am to y’all for sending me there.”  Priceless.