Aloha … from BetheExperienced Barre pediatrician
Dr. William Gaidys joins Gifford
RANDOLPH, March 17, 2009 – Dr. William Gaidys grew up in Randolph, attended Randolph Union High School and has now joined the staff of the hospital where he was born – Gifford Medical Center. 
Dr. Gaidys started work at Gifford earlier this month, serving families at both the hospital’s Randolph pediatric practice and the Gifford Health Center at Berlin.
An experienced pediatrician, Dr. Gaidys has worked for the last 16 years at Central Vermont Medical Center, serving Barre area families, and has a total of 27 years of experience as a pediatrician.
Dr. Gaidys graduated from Randolph Union High School in 1970 and then earned his bachelor’s degree in zoology from the University of Vermont in 1974. He went on to collect his doctor of medicine degree from UVM’s College of Medicine in 1979.
“When I went to medical school I thought I’d be a family doctor,” says a soft-spoken and immediately likable Dr. Gaidys. But, he says, pediatrics appealed to him. “I had great teachers in pediatrics, so when you have great teachers, it stimulates you.”
From UVM, Dr. Gaidys went on to a pediatric internship at Shands Teaching Hospital at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville from 1979-1980. His pediatric residency was at what was then the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont, now Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, from 1980-1982.
He earned a National Health Service Corps Scholarship in medical school, which required him to work in underserved areas, and consequently Dr. Gaidys spent the next decade away from his native Vermont. He was a solo, private practice pediatrician through the National Health Service Corps in first New Mexico from 1982-1983 and then in Kentucky from 1983-1985.
He went on to work at a group practice associated with Robert Packer Hospital in Pennsylvania until 1993, when – as he tells it – his wife and fellow Randolph Union High School graduate wanted to return to Vermont to be closer to family.
Dr. Gaidys has worked in Vermont since 1993.
Gifford pediatrician of 33 years Dr. Louis DiNicola says he’s known Dr. Gaidys since he first started practicing in Vermont.
“I think he’s superb. I have tremendous respect for him. He’s as good as pediatricians get,” Dr. DiNicola says of his new colleague. “His patients love him. He’s extremely caring in the way he takes care of his patients, and he knows and understands his patients very well.”
Dr. Gaidys clinical interests include general pediatrics, neonatology and acute care, or emergency pediatrics.
“I’m finding that pediatrics has become more oriented around development and behavioral problems. That involves not just the child, but working with families,” Dr. Gaidys notes. That kind of care is difficult, because it’s time consuming, but it’s also very rewarding, he says.
Dr. Gaidys is board certified by the National Board of Medical Examiners and by the American Board of Pediatrics. He is a fellow with the American Academy of Pediatrics and is a member of the Vermont Medical Association. He also enjoys teaching medical students to share his knowledge and advance the field.
There are shortages of primary care providers throughout the region and the nation, but not in Dr. Gaidys’ family.
Dr. Gaidys and his wife Loretta of Barre Town have four grown children, including a daughter who is a family physician. In Dr. Gaidys’ spare time, he farms with his wife, fishes, hunts, hikes and gardens.
“I do a fair amount of farming,” says Dr. Gaidys, who has 24 beef cows and 50 chickens.
He started as a “backyard farmer,” he notes. He bought three heifers about five years ago and named one “Dinner.” She didn’t live up to her name – at least not right away, however. Rather than butchering, he started adding livestock, he says. He does rotationally grazed beef, laying chickens and pastured meat chickens.
This farmer and beloved pediatrician is now available two days a week at the Gifford Health Center at Berlin, located just off Airport Road, and two days a week at Gifford in Randolph.
Currently joining him at the Berlin practice three mornings a week is Dr. DiNicola. Dr. Gaidys’ pediatric nurse, Rita Isabelle, has also joined him at Gifford’s Berlin practice. Seven physicians from Gifford’s team of pediatricians and family care providers are also providing on-call backup for Dr. Gaidys.
An open house to introduce Dr. Gaidys’ patients and any other interested family to the team and the recently constructed health center will be held April 2 from 4:30-6 p.m. Call the Gifford Health Center at Berlin for more information or an appointment at (802) 229-2325. Call Gifford’s Randolph pediatric practice at (802) 728-2420.