The Man Who Pioneered the Knee Replacement | Dr. E. Marlowe Goble

 

About Dr. E. Marlowe Goble

Dr. Goble has over 30 years of experience as an orthopedic surgeon and has performed over 14,000 surgeries over the course of his career. innovator and entrepreneur. He has co-founded five companies, of which three have been acquired. He has brought a number of innovations from concept to the standard of medical care, including numerous arthroscopic hip and knee repair procedures and minimally invasive total knee replacement. Dr. Goble holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and Medical Biology from the University of Utah, a Doctor of Medicine degree from Washington University, completed a surgical internship at the Barnes Hospital, completed residency in orthopedics at the University of Utah, and completed a fellowship at the Slocum Clinic. He has been published in over 20 publications and has given more than 80 medical conference presentations. Dr. Goble was recently named one of the Top 125 Knee Surgeons and Specialists to Know by Becker’s Orthopedic Review. He currently holds over 100 issued U.S. patents, with more patents pending.

 

 

Interview Transcript:

Alan
I’m here today with Marlowe Goble. Welcome to the show. Thank you. So Marlow for the listeners, can you give an overview of your your background and what brought you up to where you are today some of the things that you worked on in life and I know you’ve done quite a few things.

Marlowe
Well, first of all, I’m a I’m a I’m a father and a and a husband and a grandfather and I have a great family and I’m pleased to be talking to you. But it’s because I was I think I was raised by a good family. And I had the benefit of being raised by a family that didn’t have any resources didn’t have any money. My dad was a World War Two vet and came home discharged in Salt Lake met my mother and and us from Kentucky, I end up staying in Idaho and so I became an Idaho boy and so I get to, I get to learn what I think is important for everyone to learn. Growing up and having the kind of work for everything that was important.

Alan
Now you add it from Idaho, you you went on and you you were able to do some some schooling then are saying you also say placement sports during during college, which became a big part of your life.

Marlowe
Yeah, when I was in high school, I took care of a potato farm on the fort on Indian reservations. We learned how to take care of myself as a pretty good football player for Idaho. So I tried to use that at Oregon State, but I wasn’t that good there. So I didn’t get the scholarship I wanted and so I just went on.

Alan
That led you into I guess moving from Idaho, Oregon. Was it primarily the football or what brought you over to Oregon? Yeah.

Marlowe
Well, I had a teacher in high school that talked a lot about Oregon State. It was Oregon State, not Oregon and Oregon State 1965 was a big football power. Terry Baker was a Heisman Trophy winner. And so the idea of going to Oregon State was exciting. And I had a scholarship to go to University of Idaho. But pro throw the coach was recruited at Oregon State and he asked me to come with him and soy. I’d never been to Idaho. So I got on a Greyhound bus and went to Corvallis and played football that’s been the biggest asset as ever so homesick in my life.

Alan
So you said at Oregon State then you were there for the football and it didn’t quite work out the way you wanted or what you know, I learned that

Marlowe
There were guys I was pretty fast. But there were guys 30 pounds bigger than me that was just as fast and so I really was a second tier player. And I only lasted a year and then I in the in the church that I’m a member of they have they have missions we send you away for two years to help you grow up and and so I went away to California Anna LDS Mormon mission and spent two years there.

Alan
They were you were in where California or Arizona or what I was.

Marlowe
In Orange County, San Diego County and Arizona.

Alan
And that was at a developing a defining moment of your life during that period of time that you were serving.

Marlowe
I think it was a it was a as I look back it it fit in well with where I eventually ended up because it it it taught me to take care of myself and to be responsible for my own decisions in the in the dream.

Alan
So after the mission you then return back to school was at Oregon State or where did you end up?

Marlowe
basically returned in went to the University of Utah?

Alan
Oh, wow. And they’re good medical school, aren’t they?

Marlowe
They are but I was an undergraduate then. But again, I my family had no money. And so I took a job from midnight till eight at the Clearfield steam plant which is the Freeport center, the tax free area in in Clearfield, Utah. And so I work every night from midnight to eight and then I’d go to school and I’d always show up at class I’ll look on my face for the coldest and but I do my study at night and I still have my books if you open up my organic chemistry book it’s it’s all cold.

Alan
You must have been doing your sleeping during class and or something I did was.

Marlowe
Wound up and so I but I thought I thought that was normal. I enjoyed it united me the sleep and I enjoyed it. And so I i I was in I decided to go to pre med because I was able I like to chemistry and so I did pretty well and and then I went finish there and I was accepted at Washington University in St. Louis. And then it’s been a medical degree.

Alan
I need to take a break I’m visiting here today with Martin global and and we went visiting about his his path and life with Marlo we ended up getting something really really special after he came out of medical school, we’ll be right back after these messages.

Alan
Welcome back, I’m here today with Marlowe Goble and Marlowe we were talking about this first part of the year your your path in life is coming out from Idaho. Working on a farm Jumping over to school Oregon State doing an LDS mission and then see when you return back. You started in a pre med program eventually ending up at Washington University of St. Louis. So I’m going to fast forward this so you got your medical degree? Yes. And then what?

Marlowe
Well, then, I went back to the University of Utah for a an intern really an internship in a residency in orthopedic surgery. And Utah was known for its orthopedics. And I was really fortunate. I actually didn’t have to do an internship because why she was such a great teaching institution. And I went in with that internship went right into a residency. But that allowed me to take a year off and do research. And the chairman of the department, it was named Harold Danny, he’s a great man, world renowned surgeon. And he needed a researcher is so I took a year off and helped him in surgery he developed and two approaches to the spine injuries. And I worked on that and and then I developed my own interest in knees. And they worked. We utilized sheep for our surgery. And we did a lot of research. And I spent a whole year just doing that. And that was the key to really the rest of my life.

Alan
You actually developed something there out of the knee that a lot of people have benefited from.

Marlowe
Yes, in 1976, the anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments were not appreciated. In fact, there were some doctors that call them vestigial, meaning they used to be important in humans, but they weren’t anymore. And they certainly were not being repaired. And, and so I started studying them. And all my random fellow residents, they didn’t even know anything about them. So they thought I was wasting my time. But timing was good. And we found that they were important. And I did a lot of string aid studies. And we published it in the Journal of biomechanics with Paul France, who was an engineer, and, and we were really the first to look hard at ACLs. And things went fast from them.

Alan
And so And so today, I guess, you know, how many patents are you holding? Not only the artificial lens, but in your research.

Marlowe
My research with me is probably approaching 140 that are both granted in in the process.

Alan
Wow. Wow. And, and so you’ve moved on from you were you spent time as an active surgery surgeon doing a lot of surgery and knee replacements or will really the.

Marlowe
Whole spectrum of knees, sports medicine, ligament replacements, and also total knee replacements and minimally invasive, total knee reconstruction? I was all of that area consumed my research time. I’d spend several years in clinical then I’d take four years off and just do research. I did that three times. How many?

Alan
How many knee replacements would you guesstimate that have taken place as a result of all your research?

Marlowe
And I had a really great assistant that just left me recently has been with me forever. And she Becky she told Mi that. I’ve done 14,000

Alan
Oh my gosh. Well, that’s really and it’s evolved since the first one was in was it 76 I know you start your research but when was the actual first knee surgery that you did on a human?

Marlowe
Well, we were doing that in residency of course, but if that were my that I was the responsible surgeon was in while I spent a year in Europe, doing a fellowship that’s an extra year and then a year then time in in at the Slocum clinic in Oregon. This is a time that one that chooses a mentor and then you get schooled by them and then then I came back in Logan, Utah. The Utah State I started my practice.

Alan
Visit here today with Marlowe Goble. He is a surgeon in the area of research based operation, a knee replacements and knee surgery orthopedics. Marla, I need to take another break. And we’ll be right back after these messages.

Alan
Are you actively doing surgeries now? Or where are you at right now?

Marlowe
Well, I just turned 70 years old, but I’m pretty healthy. I still participate in the World Game screening and things like that. So I am, but I’m teaching now in rural areas, helping people stay home when they were surgery. And it’s working out well. I help with teaching about knees in the rural areas in Wyoming and, and I love doing that. And we actually take people from Utah and Wyoming and operate home. And I have something to do with the teaching of the nurses in the docs. And, and so it’s a good thing for an aging physician to do. I don’t have to spend all my time taking care of the patients. I’m just there for the surgery and the other ducks to that.

Alan
I understand that being in the rural area of Idaho, Wyoming, you also learned to pick up a hobby of fishing.

Marlowe
Oh yes, I’ve always fished. I love to fish I love to be in the outdoors. And right now my family’s down in Lake Powell and I’m here in the mountains. Because in the summers, I don’t go anyplace besides the Rocky Mountains.

Alan
So if you were advising a person starting out in young in their career and kind of looking at, you know, directions of life, what lessons have you learned that that you would pass on to them?

Marlowe
I think I’m doing something wrong when an obstacle comes along as if why, why isn’t it smooth? I mean, I’ve done everything I think I should. But every time I have a success, something, blocks it and interrupts route and I have to make there’s another fight. There’s another disappointment that shouldn’t be there. And I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that. ALAN I I don’t know what’s going on. But no matter how well I conduct myself or how well I plan. Afterwards, success, I met with an obstacle a problem. And I don’t think I deserve that. And as I talk to people that are a little older than me or that are introspective, they tell me the same thing. I got to the point that I that I don’t believe that it’s the life is meant to just go smoothly. And we don’t like the interruptions because it it pains us and it gives us consternation and we and we have pain either because of things that occur with our family or ourselves for the controversies we get into and then we work it out. And if I work at our right, then I’m back feeling good that I’ve I have a successful life. And then another obstacle comes along.

Alan
So when everything’s said and done, how would you define success in your life?

Marlowe
Well, I don’t think it’s over. And I don’t think my my challenges are over. I think this life is meant to have one challenge after another and you’re supposed to solve them. And different people have different philosophies of why that exists. And nobody’s ever completely figured it out. You know, and there are philosophies and religions and sectarian ideas but Uh, but I really think you know, I’m not a very spiritual religious person. But in terms of understanding why we have to go through these things, I privately am, like Einstein said one day I’m privately one of the most religious of people. Because I think about those things.

Alan
There’s an interesting part of your life, Marla about the study of Greek and Roman and Phoenician philosophy that I find fascinating. Now, many people have dealt in this area. So what, what brought you into the study of the the ancient philosophies.

Marlowe
Some of the things I talked about in the previous segment I wanted some answers to so I thought maybe these guys that studied it all their lives, these Greek philosophers might have thought about these issues. And indeed, like others have said, you know, there’s no place that we have gone that the Greeks hadn’t already been there. And I read a lot about Winston Churchill, he was a hero of mine. And he studied certain things when he was in India. And they included the Iliad and the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. For a book by Edward Gibbon, since I read that stuff, I learned what elevated language was, and why in Winston spoke like he did. But I also learned that, that these Greek philosophers especially have had the same thoughts that I just expressed previously. And they talk about them. And they talk about a lot of things that sometimes as illiquid, our politicians, dealing with world matters, I’m not sure they’ve read the ancient history would be helpful because they’ve been there. For example, you know, Plato, in the Republic, he said, you know, war is the natural state of man. Humans are pretty mean to each other. And, and they, they, I think if we spend a little more time realizing that the only difference between us and the people back in Rome and Greece is antibiotics and, and gunpowder. Otherwise, they’re the same civilization, they have the same thoughts we have.

Alan
Do you find that there is a, you know, there’s, there’s often hear to the inner self, the spirituality within, you know, our, you know, a man that they, the fact that we think, alike, even though we’re in such a vast difference of time, let’s talk about our true nature. Yeah.

Marlowe
Our nature is no different than the ancient peoples. And the thoughts that they need. They, they had, except for they explained the supernatural by talking about demigods, Zeus, and Athena, and they explain things they didn’t, couldn’t explain by the intervention of, of something they didn’t understand. And indeed, him you know, are, are looking at Christ and all that to them. He’s a demigod. He had an immortal father and a mortal mother.

Alan
And that’s interesting. So if we, if we move it, yeah, questions in my mind of Venetian and never met anyone who’s delved into, where do you go to study this Phoenicians? Well,

Marlowe
You know, the Iliad, really, in the 12th century, before Christ is the first written material that we really have. And they their language is beautiful, you know, there, they always used to speak in terms of memory and, and the ability to communicate something we don’t have. And once we lost, we started writing things. But the Phoenicians were actually before them. And if you go in the islands of Greece, previous to the stories in the Iliad, in The Odyssey, it’s the Phoenicians that build all of those things in depth. They’re there, they didn’t record because we didn’t, we don’t have written things from them, other than here and there, and in the oral stories that are told. So it’s to learn with the Phoenicians thought isn’t as possible as is with the, with Homer in what he expressed, with the Greeks and, and the alphabet that was brought in by that we adopted from the Egyptians. And when you when you go into that, it puts a understanding of where we are now. And why do we want to learn from them? Because they’ve got stories to tell? And they explain the answers to a lot of our questions.

Alan
And I’m curious set in the, in the, in the overview of the Phoenicians, it’s progressing with Phoenicians, the Greeks, and then the Romans Yes. And how you how well educated it was in those societies that the philosophers are usually the spokesperson for the people or what A.

Marlowe
Philosophers that are a little different than our intellectuals today, who really are university based and they do a lot of thinking, but they, they don’t really have a lot of experience a lot of them. It was common in Greek time that their philosophers, the leaders, were at once great generals, and the Roman the Greek scale. And so the Romans, they gave gave primary respect to victory with Matt, hand hand combat. And Socrates was a great combat welder, the Broadsword and he was, he was quite a fighter. And so the people respected these people, not just because they could think that they approved them so we don’t, Ryerson.

Alan
I’ve been visiting here today with Dr. Marlowe Goble and Marlowe today. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you for inviting me. And thanks for being here on American Dreams and join us next week right here.

 

We hope you enjoyed this interview; “The Man Who Pioneered the Knee Replacement | Dr. E. Marlowe Goble”.

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This transcript was generated by software and may not accurately reflect exactly what was said.

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