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By Greta Noble
In 1970, 10 million people were diagnosed with smallpox. In 1978, not a single new case was diagnosed, and in 1980, the disease was eliminated. A collaborative global vaccination program led by the World Health Organization eradicated the infectious disease in less than a decade. The director of this massive initiative was a young doctor, Dr. John Noble - he was actually the director of the program. I will send you a copy of his obituary where they say his title. While Dr. Noble was my father’s father, I have trouble saying that he was my grandfather. He may have been ten years ago, but type 1 diabetes reduced the blood flow to his hippocampus, and vascular dementia erased me from his memory. A once brilliant physician would sit across the dinner table, introducing himself to his son as if for the first time.
Dr. John Noble accomplished an extraordinary amount over a career that lasted a lifetime. After academic success at Harvard and Columbia, Dr. Noble joined the World Health Organization in Atlanta where, working for the CDC, he traveled to Brazil, Bolivia, Ghana, and Kenya, working on the smallpox eradication initiative. He then moved to North Carolina and began developing strategies to deliver primary care to rural communities. After one last move to Boston City Hospital, Dr. Noble took this initiative to a larger scale, developing rural and urban primary care clinics from Boston, Massachusetts to Khabarovsk, Russia. He helped found the Society of Internal General Medicine, and through it, Dr. John Noble’s innovative efforts carried on long after he was no longer able to.
My father grew up in a family of doctors. Alongside his father, his stepmother was leading radiological research in Poland and his brother is now at the forefront of research as a top Urological specialist in Maine. For years, medicine was all that he knew. Yet, my father could not have strayed farther from this path. I speak with utmost admiration of everything he has achieved but it is undeniable that it took a while for him to get where he stands today. Unsure where life would take him, my father took seven years to graduate from Boston University with a degree in Urban Studies and Public Policy before going on to graduate school in Architecture. During this time he backpacked through the mountains of Marseille and biked the Via Appia of ancient Rome, a road very different from that which his family had ridden. Never looking back, he met my mother in graduate school and the rest is history. He has a passion for his job that I deeply admire but once said something that resonated deep within me. As we sat at the dinner table he recalled stories of the unease he felt entering into adulthood as “Mr. Noble”, an unfamiliar term, as he had grown up with the honorific of Dr. placed before any “Noble” he greeted. He talked of the nostalgia the term brought upon him and his excitement to hear it placed before my name in the future.
That conversation was nearly two years ago now and I did not think about it again until recently. On October 3rd, 2021 Dr. John Noble passed away in his Boston apartment. At 84 years old, he had achieved more than any person could hope to achieve; A world-renowned physician, a world traveler, a world leader. The career of Dr. John Noble has long been an inspiration for me. I hope to provide service for those in the face of emergency; I hope to provide aid to those in need; I hope to become the next Dr. Noble. For years I have felt as though I did not have a grandfather. I did not have the huggable grandpa that brings presents on Christmas and comes to family dinner yet I do not feel as though I missed out. I instead have inspiration that is shaping the future I hope to have and the doctor I hope to be.
A leader, a physician, a father, and a grandfather - Dr. John Noble was each of these. He was also a monumental contributor to the world of medicine. Although I will never know the driving force behind his work or how he overcame the resistant systems that doubted him, I look to his literature and my fathers’ stories as inspiration. Growing up, I knew nothing of the distinguished accomplishments of Dr. John Noble. Yet, for as long as I can remember, I have known that I would grow up to be a doctor like my grandfather.
Greta Noble is a McConnell Scholar in the class of 2025. She is studying biology, environmental science, political science, and Spanish at the University of Louisville.