Dr. Stan Griffiths, surgeon at Summit Orthpaedics, has spent most of his life as a resident of Southeast Idaho.
Dr. Griffiths is a Board Certified Orthopaedic Surgeon. He graduated with honors from Brigham Young University, where he majored in Microbiology. He received his Doctorate of Medicine from Saint Louis University School of Medicine, graduating with Honors and as a member of the National Honor Medical Society. Dr. Griffiths completed his orthopaedic residency training at the University of New Mexico Affiliated Hospitals in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Upon completion of his orthopaedic training, he served four years as an orthopaedic surgeon for the Indian Health Service of the United States Public Health Service, on an Indian reservation in New Mexico.
After all of this, Dr. Griffiths decided to come back to this area to be close to his family.
“I knew when I was five years old that I was going to be a doctor,” Dr. Griffiths said. “I don’t know where that came from, there was no medicine in the family, but for some reason, I knew I was going to be a doctor. I didn’t know what that meant, but I never had another thought the rest of my life.”
He didn’t decide to specialize in orthopaedics until late in medical school.
“Orthopedics is fun. It’s using your hands, being creative, trying to figure out problems and solve them. So it’s been perfect for me. I grew up doing woodworking and carpentry. I like to work with my hands.”
Along with general orthopaedics, Dr. Griffiths has an extensive background in orthopaedic trauma, hand surgery, sports medicine, and adult reconstructive surgery. He has presented scientific papers on congenital hand deformities, shoulder reconstruction, wilderness medicine, altitude medicine and orthopaedics in a wilderness setting. Dr. Griffiths is a member of the Wilderness Medical Society and a member of the American Alpine Club.
Dr. Griffiths loves that Idaho Falls is so close to so many outdoor activities.
“I do a lot of outdoor things” Dr. Griffiths said. “I didn’t have a lot of time to do a lot of outdoor recreational stuff during medical school and residency, and even working on the reservation.”
Dr. Griffiths loves mountain climbing, backcountry skiing, road biking, mountain biking, and rock climbing, just to name a few.
“And now that I’m getting a little older, I’m getting back into some woodworking.”
One of Dr. Griffiths’s favorite things about practicing medicine is being able to help relieve people’s pain.
“If someone has terrible knee pain or hip pain and you can do something about that and give them some quality of life again, that’s fun.”