Marie Osborn to retire after 28 years as Stanley's nurse practitioner

by Anna Means

Challis Messenger June 10, 1999

The initial retirement schedule has been nixxed. There will be no cross country trip in June. Instead, Marie Osborn, nurse practitioner (NP) for Salmon River Emergency Clinic in Stanley, will work until her replacement arrives, then finish out the tourist season working two days a week in Stanley and another two in Idaho City.

Once Osborn's retirement plan kicks in next year, she says she'll eat all the onions and garlic she wants without fear of having an emergency eye exam turn up. Plus, if she feels like it, she'll have a second or third glass of wine on social occasions.

Such are the pleasures of retirement for medical sorts.

Osborn has spent the last 28 years in Stanley helping build an emergency medical network as well as a family practice for the 400 or so people living within the service area.

Spouting off

Osborn came to the valley as a tourist, but it didn't take long for her to call it home. She first came to the Stanley Basin with her family (she has five children) as part of IBM corporate campouts. Her husband, Cal, was an executive with the company in Boise. They fell in love with the Sawtooth Valley and bought property. It didn't take long to become involved with the community. “My kids were great to tell everyone I was a nurse and they liked to volunteer me for stuff.”

The clincher came after a bad car accident in 1971 involving four teenagers. It took two-and-a-half hours for an ambulance to arrive over Galena, because at the time Blaine County had no EMTs. Osborn was upset with this and complained at a Lieutenant Governor's conference she and Cal sponsored in Sun Valley. “One minute I'm lying by a pool spouting off to John Hutchison (who was head of the Idaho Hospital Association) about no medical services in rural Idaho, and the next thing I know I'm back in school.”

Hutchison got her lined out for NP training right away. She spent a month of intensive schooling at the University of Washington to obtain her emergency certification, interned two-and-a-half months at St. Alphonsus hospital in Boise, and in 1973 certified for family practice at the University of Utah.

At that same time EMT classes were started in Stanley, and Osborn pitched in when her schedule allowed.

Accommodations

The original clinic building was a three-room house across the street from the Kasino Club. It was donated for the summer, but when school started, she had to move the treatment room to the kitchen to make room for the school teacher who had to live there. The teacher got the bedroom to herself, but the living room served as reception and the kitchen as the treatment room. “It didn't take us long to figure out we needed a building of our own," said Osborn.

Hence, the clinic was built. “That was one highlight of my career. I never dreamed we'd outgrow it, but we have.” Today, it's a homey place with cartoons, clippings, comfortable furniture and a portion of one wall devoted to photos of wrecked vehicles.

When Osborn started there were 37 residents in Stanley. At that time there was no clinic in Challis, so she saw patients from that end of the county, which made the service area about 6,000 square miles. Now, Challis treats its own, but Stanley has 99 within city limits and about 400 people in the service area.

Transportation

“Every new ambulance is a highlight, especially the latest one.” The first was a 1957 or '58 Pontiac from Mountain Home Air Force Base. The Volkswagen dealership repainted it. Stanley has had two more since then. About 15 EMTs volunteer during the summer. Those numbers go down in the winter as do emergency calls.

Blending in

Osborn said once she moved to Stanley, it felt more like home than Boise. She was taken by the people, natural beauty of the area and the work. “I was never cut out to be a corporate/country club wife. I've always had to be involved in something. This position gave me more focus and meaning than what I was doing in Boise.”

Osborn said at first she didn't really know what an NP was, “So I grew with the project.” Aside from the emergencies common to a high impact tourist area, Osborn does a lot of family practice.

Being high profile in a small town does have its pressures. When Osborn first began her practice, people would join her and Cal while they were dining out and talk about their medical problems. “That really irritated Cal. I guess I didn't do much to discourage it and in fact may have encouraged them.” Eventually the novelty wore off and people are less inclined to discuss their ailments in public.

Busy bee

Originally, the clinic was open three clays a week, which left time for recreation. Osborn took up snowmobiling and feels she's given the community plenty of tales about “the sum of the dumb things I've done on that machine.”

She said she wasn't tempted to take up motorcycling after “patching up so many and picking up too many pieces.”

“Anymore, to play you almost have to leave the area. I'm not one to tell a mother with a kid crying from an earache that she has to wait until Monday.”

Osborn is in charge of the community Christmas party through the Chamber of Commerce. She attends as many school activities as time allows. She's a Mountain Mama, even though she doesn't quilt. She crochets. She also likes to cook and hopes she'll be more motivated to do that once she retires.

Professionally, aside from the clinic, Osborn has worked for District VII Health doing the Family Planning and Cancer Screening programs. Her clinic has preceptored medical students for several years. Also, years ago she became a deputy coroner. “It was easier to become one than to find the coroner, who was always out fishing.”

High profile

Osborn said she's enjoyed a lot of support from the community, but there Is stress associated with her work that ranges from the phone ringing to wondering if the last decision was correct. “Every time the phone rings you think something's going on ... There are a lot of times you don't have the opportunity to reflect before making decisions.”

She doesn't worry about alienating people and just figures it's happened because, “There are times when I want things badly for whatever reasons, and I can get pushy."

Regardless, Osborn says she has enjoyed her years in the valley. She loves the Sawtooth Mountains. “It's really difficult to be or stay mad at the world when you have those mountains, ever changing.”

She has enjoyed watching the kids in the community grow up and, “I'll see people who are still alive because the clinic is here and because of the skills of the EMTs. That makes it all worthwhile.”

Future plans

Once free of the bonds of employment, Osborn plans to write once she figures out how to use her new computer.

She will also lobby for rural health care. “It's come a long way, but has further to go.” This last year the legislature passed a watered down version of a bill Osborn proposed. She wanted $2 tacked onto every moving violation to fund rural emergency service training, equipment and ambulances. What she learned through the process is, "Speeding tickets are sacred cows." She got some money through a fee added to driver's licenses, but she's not satisfied and will revisit the issue.

Osborn will live in Stanley, “as much as I can.” She hopes to spend the warm season in the valley, but will winter in Boise where she can lobby the legislature.

Premature party

The community of Stanley held a bash for Osborn on May 30 despite setbacks to her retirement plans. The last hitch was a one-vehicle rollover involving a fatality two hours before the party was scheduled.

She said everyone who responded to the accident had mud and guck on their clothes after wading around in a bog where a truck rested upside down.

Regardless, the gathering was held and Osborn was toasted and maybe a little roasted by a lodge full of locals who hate to

see her go.

Replacement

Osborn said her replacement, due in July, is a physician's assistant named Greg Bourdon who has spent the last seven years in New Hampshire. "We couldn't have found anyone better," she said. "He has a great trauma background and plenty of general medical experience." Bourdon has the added benefit of having worked in a tourist area and is used to "the ups and downs of seasonal work."