Australian doctor pioneered full rehabilitation of heart attack patients

Alan Goble was the first Australian cardiologist to recognise the importance of cardiac rehabilitation programs and the need for funding to support them. He was the founder and initial chairman of the Heart Research Centre after it moved out of the National Heart Foundation in 1993 to be a stand-alone organisation; in 1989, he and Marian Worcester had set up the Centre for Social and Preventive Cardiology as part of the NHF (now the Heart Foundation). Alan James Goble was born on July 7, 1925, in Folkestone, Kent, second of three sons of one of the founders of the RAAF, Air Vice-Marshal Stanley Goble, and his wife, Kathleen (nee Wodehouse). He went to Trinity Grammar, Kew, before arriving at Trinity College, Melbourne University. He graduated in 1948 with an MBBS with honours, earned his MD in 1952, and gained his FRACP in 1960 and his FRCP in 1977. Goble's career in cardiology began at the Royal Melbourne Hospital with his appointment to the cardiac clinic in 1956. In 1961, he was appointed honorary cardiologist - the first such appointment at a major public hospital