by Jean Berns Jones

Dr. Michael McGauley has returned to his hometown to become the third surgeon on staff at Upland Hills Health.

He will work in the general surgery field to relieve the workload and help patients schedule surgeries on a timely basis.

A graduate of Dodgeville High School, he was the son of Dennis and Beverly McGauley. His mother was involved in medicine here for about 18 years, as an ICU nurse at the hospital.

After high school, McGauley joined the military. He was gone for three years working in Army Intelligence on the East Coast and in Germany.

After military service, he attended the UW-Platteville for four years and graduated in 1996 with a degree in zoology.

During his undergraduate years, he served on the Dodgeville and Platteville Rescue Squads and also for one year as a paramedic for Lake Geneva. These experiences directed him toward a career in medicine.

“I was an EMT and liked it, and being a paramedic was a progression that made me want to do more,” he explained.

Moving to Kansas City, MS he attended medical school at the University of Health Sciences, College of Osteopathic Medicine. He spent two years of clinical rotation, along with five years residency, in Garden City, Michigan.

Twelve years ago he married Monica Loeffelholz, a native of Argyle, and they have three children (7,5,3). Their family moved to Dodgeville from Michigan two weeks ago, and the active youngsters are already involved in soccer, kickball and T-ball.

Dr. McGauley had hoped to start practicing in Dodgeville, then learned of the vacancy at Upland Hills from a good friend who is a physician there.

“The Dodgeville area is progressive in medicine,” he said. “The hospital does a really good job with health care and has state of the art equipment. The hospital is not run by a big corporation so it has a different mentality.”

Along with the healthcare environment being attractive, “This is a nice, pretty area to be in and Dodgeville has a lot to offer,” he added.

Dr. McGauley expects to start his surgical duties about August 1. Among other things he will perform endoscopy, such as colonoscopies and upper endoscopies, which is the fastest growing surgical field.

“Dodgeville has really grown and changed since I lived here,” he observed. “Lands’ End has grown six-fold since I worked on the phones there in high school, and the schools, the hospital and other places keep expanding.”

“Dodgeville has started to make that jump from a small town to a small city, but it still feels like home,” he added.