Nelson H. Goldberg’s prize sits in his driveway and gleams like a jewel in the sunlight. It’s a dazzling red machine shaped like a bullet on two black wheels. When he turns over the ignition, the machine erupts with a throaty growl, and Goldberg, dressed in jeans, a black leather jacket, black leather boots and red racing helmet, guides his motorcycle out of the driveway. Then, ever so gently, he opens the throttle and bolts down the street with a roar that can be heard a mile away.

This is no ordinary bike or ordinary doctor. He is a rebel with a cause. A member of the class of 1973, Goldberg is professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery, and the former head of the school’s division of plastic and reconstructive surgery. He wears his curly hair to his shoulders, boasts a tattoo, and has a penchant for riding fast motorcycles—even to work. While he has a wild side, for the past 12 years he has dedicated himself to treating injured and deformed children and adults in Third World countries. He is also married and has three adult children.

Although he collects knives and fountain pens, plays golf, and lifts weights, motorcycles are his passion. At his Cockeysville, Maryland, home, Goldberg has miniature motorcycles sitting on bookshelves and mantles. A Harley-Davidson clock hangs on his basement wall, and there are pictures of him dressed in cycling leathers hanging out with his riding buddies.

In April, Goldberg bought his dream bike after about 40 years of riding motorcycles. He purchased a Ducati Desmosedici RR, a Grand Prix racing bike that at full throttle can do 200 miles per hour. Goldberg picked up the bike for a cool $65,000 and only 1,500 were manufactured in the world. His bike was number 245 behind Tom Cruise who reportedly was the first to buy one in the U.S.

“It’s just like being a rock star,” says Goldberg, who sees people staring at his new ride. “This is sort of the pinnacle, but not to race; I’m too old to do anything foolish like that. To me, this was the ultimate motorcycle that I could have and ride.”

Goldberg didn’t start out riding big, powerful bikes, but as a youngster he envisioned himself on a motorcycle one day. He grew up in Baltimore, the older of two boys. His late father, Sylvan Goldberg, ’39, was an internist. As a boy, Goldberg’s heroes were Colts superstar Johnny Unitas and two TV characters. “I wanted to be Ben Casey,” he says, referring to the 1960s television drama about a young, idealistic surgeon.

“He was a pissed off angry young man. He was willing to fight theestablishment for his patients.”

He also saw himself as Jim Bronson, the main character in the late 1960s TV drama, Then Came Bronson, about an ex-newspaperman who helps people while riding across the country on a Harley-Davidson Sportster. “I thought I could be a surgeon, ride and help people,” he says.

Goldberg with a resident and patient after surgery in Columbia, South America

But he started out with baby steps, riding a Vespa scooter from his home to high school. The Vespa went with him to the University of Pennsylvania, but while in medical school, he and his brother, Jonathan, bought two Triumph 650s, big bikes that moved. “I really didn’t think I had full control over it,” says Goldberg, recalling the first time he rode the Triumph through some windy roads. “It was kind of scary.”

After graduating from medical school in 1973, Goldberg did his internship and residency at Yale University School of Medicine and Yale New Haven Hospital. He thought about becoming a neurosurgeon and then a heart surgeon, but he soon discovered plastic surgery. In 1978, he became chief resident of plastic surgery at Yale New Haven Hospital.
Being a plastic surgeon not only allowed him to demonstrate his skill, but to help people who were scarred at birth or seriously wounded and deformed. “To me plastic surgery is the more challenging surgery,” Goldberg says. “A lot of it is visual. You reconstruct someone who looks abnormal and make that person normal again.”

In 1981, Goldberg became assistant professor of surgery and plastic reconstructive surgery at Maryland. He continued to ride motorcycles—BMWs and Harley-Davidsons. “It didn’t matter what it was as long as it had two wheels and was fast,” Goldberg says. In 1983, he and a neighbor decided to take a camping trip and ride their motorcycles. Little did they know that the duo would launch a group that gets together to this day called “Fall Tour.”

Goldberg was named head of the plastic surgery division in 1985, and four years later helped create the Johns Hopkins-University of Maryland Combined Training Program in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, becoming its co-director.
While his motorcycles provided a thrill, Goldberg craved more adventure. His daughter, Gretchen, convinced him in 1996 to travel to Guyana with her through an outreach program to help people who had little or no health care. “We could be killed or kidnaped,” he thought. Despite the trepidation, he went on the trip and was stunned by the poverty. People had little food, electricity and some lived in cardboard huts. He performed cleft palate surgeries, nasal reconstructions, and mended hands.

He took other trips over the years to El Salvador, Peru, Thailand and China. He believes he is changing lives, especially the lives of children. “We operate on the poorest people,” he says. “Part of why I went into medicine was to help people. If we don’t take on initiatives such as this, there is a good chance it will never
get done.”

Since stepping down as head of the division of plastic and reconstructive surgery in 2006 after more than 20 years, Goldberg has a little more time on his hands. He could easily spend it on his new Desmosedici, or on the five other motorcycles he has in his garage that include a Harley-Davidson V-Rod, Ducati Superbike 999R, two Buell street bikes, and a small dirt bike that his son rides.

He remembers the day he picked up the Desmosedici at Duc Pond Motorsports in Winchester, Va. “I took my wife,” Goldberg recalls. “She was just amazed that there were so many people circling it, taking pictures of it. I was grinning from ear to ear.”

Goldberg is planning his next trip with Fall Tour. The group has taken trips up to 10 days and has traveled to places like Nova Scotia, Florida, Upper Michigan and South Dakota. But none of the members really like to camp anymore; so they have decided to fly to their destination, stay in a hotel and rent motorcycles. “A couple of years ago we all admitted that we don’t like sleeping on the ground anymore,” admits Goldberg, who battled prostate cancer about two years ago.
Goldberg plans to continue enjoying the speed and freedom that riding provides. His wife, Marcia, isn’t crazy about her husband riding, but she has had no luck convincing him that a car might make more sense. “I don’t even try anymore,” she says with a smile.