Madeline Waid dreamed of being a musician.
Her mother wasn’t having it.
“My mother would take me around and show me all of the unemployed people who majored in music,” Waid recalls.
Waid’s fallback? Medicine. She was good at science and so – to her mother’s great delight – she attended Whitworth College in Spokane, Wash., for her undergraduate degree and then the University of Nevada School of Medicine in Reno. She went on to a general surgery internship at Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, N.Y., and an anesthesiology residency at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Anesthesiology became her calling after she spent time in an operating room, and didn’t want to leave. Anesthesiologists’ careers are spent primarily in the OR. They also dedicate themselves to one patient at a time and provide direct care, rather than writing an order that a nurse or other health care provider will later carry out, Dr. Waid explains, calling the field as much art as science.
It is an art Dr. Waid has been performing well for 23 years.
Since completing her residency in 1990, Dr. Waid has gone on to work at Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque, N.M., Champlain Valley Medical Anesthesia Services in Plattsburgh, N.Y., and CVPH Medical Center, also in Plattsburgh.
She now joins Gifford to be a little closer to her now grown children, to work in a community hospital and for the outstanding work environment.
“When I started at CVPH it was just a little bigger than Gifford. I wanted to get back to the small community hospital feel,” said Waid, who was also impressed with the friendliness of staff and transparency at her new employer.
“Everyone was so helpful. ‘I really want to be here,’” she recalls saying following her interview.
That dream became reality in July when she joined the Surgery Division and team of anesthesiologists working out of Gifford’s three busy operating rooms.
Personable and friendly, a warm Dr. Waid approaches patients with a sense of humor and strives to make each patient as comfortable as possible. She provides a wide array of anesthesia services, but has special interests in pediatrics and sedation.
Dr. Waid is board certified by the American Board of Anesthesiology as well as by the National Board of Medical Examiners.
A native of Nevada, she now lives in Randolph – just down the street from the hospital. She lives with her husband, James Owens, a college lecturer in computer science who has spent the last three years teaching in Iraq. Together they have three adult children. In her free time, Dr. Waid enjoys music, namely playing the piano, as well as gardening, travel and reading.
