Dr. Marilee Votel-Kvaal '82 returns to St. Thomas

Dr. Marilee Votel-Kvaal '82 returns to St. Thomas
From Student Health Service and Wellness Center

Please welcome Marilee Votel-Kvaal, M.D., to the University of St. Thomas Student Health Service and Wellness Center. Votel-Kvaal '82 may be familiar to many students who have used the services at Student Health Service in the past as she has provided health care to St. Thomas students on a part-time basis since completing her medical residency in 1991.  

Dr. Marilee
Votel-Kvaal

Previously, Votel-Kvaal, a board-certified internal medicine physician, practiced at a busy Allina Medical Clinic in Woodbury and at SHS; however, as the complexity of students' health care needs and the number of students accessing SHS increased in recent years, she was recruited to a more full-time position to help meet those needs.

Though she enjoyed the many patients and families that she cared for during her 11 years in internal medicine, Votel-Kvaal looks forward to the unique rewards that working with the college population brings. These rewards, she reports, include such work as: helping a freshman through their first away-from-home illness; diagnosing new chronic illness in young adults and helping them adjust to the life changes that these diagnoses can bring; experiencing many world cultures through clinic visits with our international students; and helping manage an acutely ill student back to health, often saving them a trip to urgent care or an emergency room.

Votel-Kvaal also is interested in new career challenges in the areas of public health and community-acquired infectious diseases, both of which are areas that interface well with the work that she will do at UST.

"We are thrilled that Dr. Votel-Kvaal accepted the position at the Student Health Service and Wellness Center," said Madonna McDermott, director of Student Health Service and Wellness Center. "Her knowledge, skill and passion as an internal medicine physician support our goal of becoming leaders in college health and better care for students with more complex medical needs."

Votel-Kvaal received her B.A. in 1982 as one of the second graduating class of women at St. Thomas. She then attended the University of Minnesota Medical School, graduating in 1988, and followed with an internal medicine residency at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. She is married to Greg Kvaal '81. They have five children.