William Shainline Middleton, M.D., M.A.C.P. was a prestigious American internist and military physician. He was one of the founders of the American Board of Internal Medicine and its first Secretary-Treasurer. Middleton was also the second Dean of the University of Wisconsin Medical School. He was the man that our Madison VA Hospital is named after.
Dr. Middleton was born in 1890. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and began teaching at the University of Wisconsin (UW) in 1912.
Dr. Middleton served with distinction and honor in World War I. An army captain with the British and American expedition forces in France, he was awarded the Victory Medal with seven battle clasps.
After being discharged from service in 1919, he returned to the UW where in addition to his teaching duties, he served as a consultant to various Federal agencies including the U. S. Public Health Service, the Veterans Bureau, and in 1930 the Veterans’ Administration. In 1935, Dr. Middleton was appointed Dean of the Medical School of the UW, a position he held for 20 years.
Dr. Middleton served with distinction in World War II, assigned to the Office of the Chief Surgeon for the European Theatre of Operations. Colonel Middleton, as the chief consultant in medicine, taught courses at numerous hospitals and participated actively in the teaching of medical officers at Army and Air Force Field Service schools. For his services during World War II, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Order of the British Empire and the French Croix de Guerre with Palm. After the war, Dr. Middleton returned to the UW.
In 1955, taking a leave of absence as dean, Dr. Middleton was sworn in as Chief Medical Director for the Veterans’ Administration. From the beginning Dr. Middleton stimulated medical research. In 1957, 3,644 research projects had been started; when he retired in 1963 more than 7,500 research projects had been undertaken.
Dr. Middleton was committed to an accelerated educational program in the Department of Medicine and Surgery. He encouraged close cooperation between VA medical facilities and medical schools. Before his retirement more than 70 medical schools were conducting training courses at VA facilities.
During the time Dr. Middleton served as Chief Medical Director, every VA hospital that was planned or constructed included, at his insistence, facilities for the treatment of patients suffering from mental illness.
To assure that the limited number of beds would be allocated on the basis of medical need, Dr. Middleton introduced a pre-bed care program. He directed that tests be given prior to a patient’s admittance; these medical tests enabled the medical staff to determine who was most in need of the hospital beds available.
As Chief Medical Director, despite his many duties and responsibilities, he still found time to visit with patients at the Mount Alto VA Hospital every Saturday morning when he was in Washington, D.C.
In 1963, he returned to the University of Wisconsin where he resumed teaching duties both as dean and professor of medicine emeritus. In addition to his duties at the UW, he served as a consultant at the VA Hospital in Madison. Every day, starting at 7 a.m. he would tour the hospital visiting patients, a routine he continued until three weeks prior to his death on September 9, 1975.
Dr. Middleton was acclaimed, by those who had the good fortune to study under him, as one of the greatest teachers of medicine that this country has ever developed. His abilities and contributions were evidenced by his honorary degrees. During his lifetime he was awarded honorary degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge University, Temple University, Marquette University, the University of Wisconsin and Northwestern University.
In September 1976, Public Law 94-420 changed the name of our Madison VA facility to the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans' Hospital in its 25th year of operation in honor of Dr. Middleton and his years of service to the VA. Dr. Middleton was a physician, teacher, scholar, patriot, veteran of both World Wars, professor, dean administrator, researcher, and again physician - first, last and always.
Read Public Law 94-420 which named our hospital