• Government
• Profession
• Business
• Opinion
• Health

• Health reform
• H1N1
• P4P
• EMRs
• Medicare
• Liability
• AMA House
• » More

• Book Excerpt
• Business Pitch
• Meetings
• » More

• Contract Language
• Ethics Forum
• In the Courts
• Practice Management
• Technically Speaking
• » More

• Issue dates
• Regions
• Health plans
• Sections
• News briefs
• Columns
• Editorials
• Letters
• Writers
• Other years

• Search tips
• E-mail alert
• Radio
• RSS
• Mobile
• Subscribe
• Institutions
• Staff directory
• Advertising
• Permissions
• Reprints
• News media
• Site guide
• Useful links
• About
• Premium
• Contact

Doctor divides his days between bones and bison

The orthopedic surgeon and Idaho rancher is also a helicopter pilot, teacher and inventor.

By Damon Adams, amednews staff. Jan. 7, 2002.

• PRINT|
• E-MAIL|
• RESPOND|
• REPRINTS|
• SHARE

The Doctor is Out
A look at physician lives outside the exam room. In the office, time is a precious commodity for today's busy physicians. Away from work, many doctors find unique activities and hobbies to help them unwind and to enrich their lives.

Marlowe Goble, MD, likes to be where the buffalo roam. Nestled in a canyon in southeast Idaho is his 8,000-acre Medicine Lodge Ranch, where he raises 1,200 head of buffalo for meat.

Dr. Goble also is an orthopedic surgeon and professor in Utah. And he has an orthopedic research company, Medicine Lodge Orthopedics.

How does he juggle being a rancher in Idaho and a physician in Utah?

With a lot of patience and sound business sense.

And a helicopter, of course.

Dr. Goble pilots his own helicopter (named Wounded Knee), whirling from his Idaho ranch to his Utah practice in about one hour and 20 minutes -- much less than the four-hour driving time.

"It's kind of an isolated area up near the Continental Divide," the doctor said of his ranch. "After orthopedic work, it's fun to isolate yourself somewhat."

You can't get much further removed than Medicine Lodge Ranch.

It rests about 80 miles north of Idaho Falls, and runs through Medicine Lodge Canyon.

The ranch boasts barns built by the Amish. Snowcapped mountains add a postcard backdrop for the plains where buffalo graze.

(By the way, while technically buffalo are bison, the terms buffalo and bison are used interchangeably for American bison.)

Snow covers the ranch grounds about five months a year. No problem for the bison.

"Their coats are so thick," said ranch manager Stuart Breinholt, brother of Michele Goble, Dr. Goble's wife and ranch partner.

Dr. Goble said he spends a few months a year, mostly in the summer, at the ranch. When he's there, he wears a cowboy hat and boots and rides his quarter horse, Robbie. [...]