Western Maryland Health System
Physician Profile – Dr. Gary Wagoner

Why did you choose Family Medicine?

As a little kid growing up, I always wanted to be a doctor and my mother encouraged me to do it. She was the reason I came back home to practice. I looked for a practice close enough to home but not in the backyard. When I finished my training, I looked at WV, PA, VA, and MD. I visited and thought Cumberland looked liked a good town to practice in, which turned out to be right! I called Sister Cecilia at Sacred Heart Hospital, who offered a promised salary of $65,000 a year in 1978. They were concerned about if I would make that much. I surpassed that goal and had to close my practice to new patients within a year because I had a full practice. I still do, although I will occasionally take a family member. I see four and five generations of families. It's rewarding...I like everything about practicing medicine, except for the fact that it is indoors!

Tell me about your education.

I completed medical school at West Virginia University and my residency at the University of Charleston in West Virginia. I enjoyed OB in residency and used that skill in my first four years of practice here in Western Maryland. I enjoyed the “cycle of life” I had in family practice, treating newborns to the elderly.

What about your family?

I was raised in nearby Springfield, West Virginia, and was the youngest of three sons. My father passed away when I was ten, so my mother was very influential in our lives. I worked with a veterinarian treating farm animals and worked on the farm, and I still like to work outdoors. My wife Wilma and I have four children, one who lives locally and has three of our four grandchildren. Two of our children are in computer science and one is in recruitment.

What has kept you here for 29 years?

Cumberland has been a great city; this town has been good to me. I have been fortunate to see generations of good patients.

Anything especially memorable in your career?

Along with Dr. Miles, I started the Family Medicine Department at Sacred Heart Hospital. I have been a member of the By-laws Committee, president of the Medical Staff, and was Hospice Director from 1979 until it closed. I am currently Director of Home Hospice. I have been the Medical Director at The Brandenburg Center since 1979.

How about changes you've seen?

Although the case has always been that when patients are sick they want to see their own doctors, I have seen patients becoming more accepting of seeing others when I am not on call. I see where we have gotten away from general practice and we need to get back to it. If you have enough general practice, you will get enough specialists. The hospitalist program has been good. I see it becoming more and more positive and it may allow me to slow down in the future.

And the future?

I would like to slow down eventually and get back to the farm, cutting brush and being outdoors spending time with my brother.