Family of doctors provide family care in rural Iowa towns
Jon Ahrendsen (right); one of his daughters, Andrea McLoughlin (second from left); and Andrea’s husband, Michael McLoughlin (left), all practice medicine in Clarion, Iowa. Andrea’s sister, Elizabeth Dupic (second from right), practices family medicine at Buena Vista Regional Medical Center in Storm Lake, Iowa. (Photo by Karl Ahrendsen.)
When Jon Ahrendsen’s family gets together around the dinner table, it’s not unusual for the topic of medicine to come up.
That’s what happens when four members of a family are doctors.
Ahrendsen practices family medicine at Iowa Specialty Hospitals and Clinics in Clarion, Iowa. One of his daughters, Andrea McLoughlin, who also is in family medicine, and her husband, general internist Michael McLoughlin, practice alongside him in Clarion. Another daughter, Elizabeth Dupic, practices family medicine at Buena Vista Regional Medical Center in Storm Lake, Iowa.
“It’s fun for us to get together and be able to talk about our experiences with people who understand,” Dupic says.
All are alumni of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine—Ahrendsen in 1982, Andrea and Michael McLoughlin in 2013, and Dupic in 2016.
Ahrendsen says he’s proud that his daughters followed in his footsteps—both in medicine and practicing in a rural area.
“I think that they feel like they had a good experience growing up in a small town,” Ahrendsen says. “I didn’t do anything to push them into those decisions. They made them themselves.”
Small town a perfect fit for family of doctors
Ahrendsen was assisting his daughter Andrea on a cesarean section when he realized something: He had been the doctor when the mother was born.
“We came out after the birth and I saw the new grandmother, who I knew when she became a new mother,” Ahrendsen says. “To have delivered the patient who Andrea was performing a C-section on was pretty special.”
Ahrendsen’s roots in Clarion took shape toward the end of his residency at Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines, Iowa. One of his medical school classmates had accepted a job in Clarion. They needed another physician, and Ahrendsen decided it would be a good fit.
“There’s a sense of camaraderie that you have in a small town that you don’t get in the city. When you ask your neighbors for help, your neighbors will come and help you—even when you’re not asking for help,” Ahrendsen says. “When I moved to town, I went down to the hardware store to buy something for the house, and I left my credit card there. Within an hour, the guy who owned the hardware store knew I was the new doctor in town and talked to somebody who knew where my house was. And he drove to my house and brought me my credit card. That is not going to happen in a big city.”
Clarion, which has a population of less than 3,000, continues to be a good fit not just for Ahrendsen, but for his daughter and son-in-law and their family as well.
“There’s a sense of camaraderie that you have in a small town that you don’t get in the city. When you ask your neighbors for help, your neighbors will come and help you—even when you’re not asking for help.”
In deciding which career she might enjoy, Andrea McLoughlin says she wanted a job that would be in demand and allow her to live anywhere she wanted.
“And I grew up with a good example on that front,” Andrea McLoughlin says.
She went to Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa, as a pre-med student. While she applied to a few medical schools, Iowa was always her top choice.
Michael and Andrea McLoughlin love raising their family in Clarion, Iowa, where they are close to other relatives. “We can see Andrea’s parents’ house from our house, and my parents are only 45 minutes away,” says Michael. “It would be a challenge to do what we do without help. I’m glad to be close to both of our parents, and our kids are super glad to be close to our parents.” (Photo courtesy of the McLoughlin family.)
Michael McLoughlin went to high school in Fort Dodge, Iowa, and got his undergraduate degree in psychology from Central College in Pella, Iowa. He was halfway through his first year of graduate school for exercise psychology at the University of Wisconsin when he decided he wanted to go to medical school.
“I appreciated all the intellectual aspects of what I did in grad school, but I liked all the people aspects of being a coach, and I thought I could do both of those in medicine,” Michael McLoughlin says.
He did his medical school prerequisites while finishing his master’s degree and applied to multiple schools. Ultimately, he chose Iowa—partially because he says it’s home.
Andrea and Michael say one of the best parts about medical school at Iowa, where they graduated in 2013, was the people.
“Being with a bunch of really thoughtful and talented classmates was special,” Michael McLoughlin says. “Even though we’re all pretty spread out now, we still feel really close to a lot of our friends from medical school.”
After finishing residencies in Des Moines—Andrea at Broadlawns Medical Center and Michael at Iowa Methodist Medical Center—the couple moved to Tacoma, Washington, for a year while Andrea completed a rural medicine and obstetrics fellowship with surgical OB training, which certified her to perform cesarean sections.
They considered moving to multiple places but decided on Clarion.
“There are a lot of places where we could practice, but we thought, ‘What kind of community can we best serve and most needs our skills?’” Andrea McLoughlin says.
“And a big part of it was that we knew we wanted to start a family soon,” Michael McLoughlin says. “We can see Andrea’s parents’ house from our house, and my parents are only 45 minutes away. It would be a challenge to do what we do without help. I’m glad to be close to both of our parents, and our kids are super glad to be close to our parents.”
They also enjoy practicing medicine with Ahrendsen.
“Growing up, my dad was the smartest person I knew, hands down,” Andrea McLoughlin says. “I appreciate the adult relationship we have now, and I continue to admire him. We also appreciate that he is open to seeking advice and accepting help from us newbies.”
The three family members are all proud to practice medicine, and to do it in a rural area.
“Years later, I still think medicine is a good career,” Ahrendsen says. “People are always going to have illness, disease, and accidents, and need physicians to help. And I think it’s very gratifying when you can help another person.”
Finding fulfillment in family medicine in Storm Lake
Elizabeth Dupic spent the summer between her first and second years of medical school at a health care center in Manchester, Iowa. She returned for a rotation during her third year and again for a four-week elective during her fourth year.
“I was in on the delivery of a baby my first time, and then I got to see that baby as a 3-year-old when I was a fourth-year student,” Dupic says. “Experiencing that sort of continuity of care was neat, and it gave me a taste of what it would be like in the future.”
It was exactly the type of experience that the future family medicine physician from Clarion, Iowa, was looking for when she started at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine.
Dupic graduated from Iowa in 2016 and now works at Buena Vista Regional Medical Center in Storm Lake, Iowa. Moving to Storm Lake in 2019 was a homecoming of sorts for Dupic. She received her undergraduate degree in biology from Buena Vista University, where she also played basketball for a year and ran track for four years.
Iowa was Dupic’s first choice for medical school. Along with the benefit of in-state tuition, she says she appreciated the opportunities Iowa offered to train in rural health care and the ability to do her rotations in the state, where she planned to practice after graduation.
After being waitlisted, Dupic spent the year helping the immigrant population in Storm Lake navigate the health care system and teaching English.
“I liked living in a rural community and so, partly, that is what I wanted for myself and my family. But I also saw, growing up and then later working with families in Storm Lake, how beneficial it was to have good, high-quality physicians in communities like those, and I wanted to help fill that gap.”
Elizabeth Dupic and her husband, Kyle Dupic, met as undergraduate students at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa. After Elizabeth received her medical degree, they were happy to return to Storm Lake with their children, Elise, Luther, and Beatrice. Not pictured is their youngest, Delia. (Photo by Carol Dupic.)
Dupic says she always planned to practice in a rural area after graduation.
“I liked living in a rural community and so, partly, that is what I wanted for myself and my family,” Dupic says. “But I also saw, growing up and then later working with families in Storm Lake, how beneficial it was to have good, high-quality physicians in communities like those, and I wanted to help fill that gap.”
As for practicing family medicine, that was an easy decision.
“You get to care for entire families and help them through the transitions of life. It’s cradle-to-grave medicine,” Dupic says. “I also was looking forward to the variety of care I’d get to provide. I have something different walk in the door every day. You never know what you’re going to see.”
She and her husband, Kyle Dupic, met at Buena Vista University, and both were happy to return to Storm Lake.
“I like that it’s a rural farming community that also has a large immigrant population,” Dupic says. “So, there’s a lot of variety in the people, and that was one of the things that I was looking for. Plus, it makes for really good restaurants. We’ve got some of the best Thai food in the state here.”
Storm Lake also had another advantage when it came to practicing medicine.
“I get to practice full-spectrum family medicine,” Dupic says. “In some places, the family doctors are only outpatient and they don’t do OB. But I get to do it all. I get to see my patients in the hospital and deliver babies. It’s a perfect balance of managing a wide variety of patient problems and having support from nearby specialists.”
