Husband-wife doctor team retiring after 31 years

After 31-plus years of service, a successful practice, and hundreds of patients, Drs. Anita Robinson and Chris Kutteruf are calling it a career.

With an open house farewell planned for Friday at their office, North Idaho Gastro and Cardio, the doctors are just getting their heads around the concept that they are done.

"I really like to golf, and only plan to golf here in the area, but at some point I want to go down to Pullman and Moscow and play at their golf courses," Robinson said.

Robinson is originally from Sandpoint and was raised on a dairy farm. She attended the University of Idaho and received two degrees at U of I, including a masters in zoology. She earned her medical degree at the University of Texas, and completed her residency at the UCLA San Fernando Valley program. She then went on to a cardiology fellowship at the New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston.

It was after the fellowship that Dr. Robinson and Dr. Kutteruf returned to North Idaho to start up their own practice.

"It was always my plan to come back to North Idaho and help people," Robinson said.

Dr. Kutteruf earned a degree from Tufts University and then a medical degree from Boston University. Kutteruf then did two years of family practice at the San Bernadino County General Hospital. Kutteruf decided that wasn't what he wanted to do, so he then practiced two years of internal medicine at the UCLA San Fernando Valley Medical program.

It was at UCLA where Kutteruf and Robinson met.

"She was a first-year there, and I was a second-year there, and we ended up working together," Kutteruf said. "From there we both went back to Boston."

Dr. Kutteruf ended up specializing in gastroenterology, and along with his wife, opened up the North Idaho Gastro and Cardio.

Robinson and Kutteruf have two daughters, Mary and Rachel, who have gone on to accomplish many things in their careers thus far. Mary received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Virginia and is currently conducting research in the Navy. Rachel, their other daughter, is currently in Northwestern for her residency, following in her parents' footsteps of becoming a doctor.

During their 31-plus years in their medical career both Robinson and Kutteruf have gone above and beyond for their patients and in their practice. From 1999 to 2007 the doctors went to Rio Bravo in Mexico to help less-fortunate people and held free clinics.

"We saw it as an opportunity to help people and we decided to go down and do it," Robinson said.

Along with traveling down to Mexico, the doctors also started up a retirement fund for their employees when they first opened up North Idaho Gastro and Cardio.

"We wanted that to be started as soon as possible, and help our employees plan for retirement," Robinson said.

Along with the retirement fund, both the doctors started up a bi-annual bike ride. They have done the bi-annual bike ride for more than 20 years and destinations have included Priest River, Plummer and Kellogg.

Dr. Kutteruf is an avid biker, sometimes bicycling up to 100 miles on some trips, and a couple of times in his life, 200 miles.

"I've done the mid-summer Nightmare in Spokane a couple times, which is 200 miles," Kutteruf said. "The first 150 miles isn't so hard, but the last 50 are torture."

Along with retirement and traveling, Kutteruf is also looking forward to hiking with his dogs.

After Friday, Robinson and Kutteruf will have all the time in the world to enjoy the things they love most.