Brokaw op-ed in New York Times keeps his Powell experience alive

Posted 1/4/18

The high profile NBC-TV newsman made a late July visit to Powell, which he likened to a picture postcard of small town America.

Brokaw explored the state of healthcare in a rural community in visiting with Powell physicians last summer. His …

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Brokaw op-ed in New York Times keeps his Powell experience alive

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Powell’s “Tom Brokaw connection“ made news again to open 2018, courtesy of a mention in a Brokaw-authored op-ed in the New York Times.

The high profile NBC-TV newsman made a late July visit to Powell, which he likened to a picture postcard of small town America.

Brokaw explored the state of healthcare in a rural community in visiting with Powell physicians last summer. His interviews with Drs. Nate Rieb and Sarah Durney of Powell Valley Healthcare and Dr. Bob Chandler of 307Health were carried on the NBC Today Show over the Labor Day weekend in September.

Some of his reflections in Monday’s opinion piece in the New York Times, on healthcare in America, grew out of his Powell trip.

Brokaw particularly cited the commitment of rural healthcare practitioners.

“In Powell, Wyo., I met a doctor, Nathaniel Rieb, the son of a Presbyterian minister, who is the only general surgeon in the town hospital,” Brokaw wrote. “He stays because if he leaves, then what?”

“Nathaniel and his wife have five children, including one severely disabled by multiple sclerosis. They met him on a mercy mission to Haiti and immediately made him part of their family. I left our encounter thinking, ‘I’d like to be Nathaniel’s patient and his neighbor.’”

While Dr. Rieb may have been flattered to be singled out for his dedication to rural medicine, he said there is a simple explanation for his devotion to a surgical practice at PVHC.

“We stay because we love Powell,” he said.

Of his meeting with Brokaw this summer, Rieb said having Brokaw and the NBC team in his home was a pleasing experience.

“He was a very warm and engaging guy and easy to talk to,” said Rieb. “The article in the New York Times had some details that were inaccurate, but I don’t have a sour taste at all.”

For instance, Rieb’s father “is a Baptist minister,” he explained. “We are Presbyterian.”

The Riebs have five children, all educated at home. It was important to Dr. Rieb and his wife Lisa to set the record straight about the adoption of their son Moses of Haitian birth: He suffers from cerebral palsy rather than multiple sclerosis, and his adoption was not a spur of the moment decision on a mercy mission to Haiti.

According to international adoption protocols, “We went through the adoption process prior to going to Haiti,” Rieb said. “From the moment we saw his story, we knew he was disabled.”

Dr. Rieb repeated that he is “not upset by the stuff that was wrong.” 

In fact, he added, “I would be happy to have Tom Brokaw as my neighbor.”

Headlined “You Can Find the Entire World Inside Your Hospital,” Brokaw’s op-ed describes the ethnic diversity and “selfless compassion” which populates the healthcare system. It can be found at www.nytimes.com/2017/12/31/opinion/tom-brokaw-health-care-immigrants.html

Brokaw came to northwest Wyoming last summer to film a segment of the 2017 Pilgrimage at the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center for the Today Show.

Along the way, he spent the better part of a day in Powell, where he chatted with the morning coffee crowd at a local cafe and mingled with Park County Fair-goers to assess support for Donald Trump six months into his presidency. His conversations with Powellites made their way into an August airing of NBC Nightly News.

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