Profile
Dr. Clifford James Goodman Jr.
Kane-King Award winner, Navy medical officer, Chief of Staff at Chandler Regional - following his father's path.
Focus
1960: Salutatorian, Chandler High
1971: Kane-King Award at GWU
1976: Returns to Chandler, founds practice
MomDoc grows to 21 offices
Why he matters
Dr. Clifford James Goodman Jr. transformed women’s healthcare in Arizona. Starting from a small Chandler practice in 1976, he built MomDoc into one of the largest OB/GYN networks in the state - pioneering the “Women for Women” model, integrating midwifery, and creating patient-centered care environments that felt like living rooms rather than clinics. [S35]
Early tragedy and resilience
Born April 11, 1943 in Washington, D.C., Clifford Jr. was thrust into responsibility early. When his father died unexpectedly at age 40 in 1961, eighteen-year-old Clifford became the de facto patriarch of eight siblings. [S35]
He had just begun college on an academic scholarship to the University of Chicago. To support his mother Leoma and his seven younger siblings, he transferred back to Arizona schools - attending both the University of Arizona and Arizona State University. [S35]
Academic excellence
Even in a small rural Arizona school, Clifford’s intellect stood out. He skipped the eleventh grade and graduated as salutatorian of Chandler High School (Class of 1960). This earned him the scholarship to one of the nation’s most rigorous universities. [S35]
The German mission (1963-1965)
Following LDS tradition, Clifford served a full-time mission in Germany from 1963 to 1965. In post-war Germany - still divided by the Iron Curtain - he gained fluency in German, a skill he maintained for life. [S35]
Following his father’s path
In deliberate homage to his father, Clifford Jr. attended George Washington University School of Medicine - the very city of his birth and his father’s alma mater. He graduated with his M.D. in 1971. [S35]
The Kane-King Award
In his final year at GWU, Clifford earned the Kane-King Obstetrical Society Award as the outstanding senior student in Obstetrics and Gynecology. This honor signaled his calling - he didn’t fall into OB/GYN, he excelled at it from the start. [S35]
Navy service
After residency, Dr. Goodman served in the United States Navy as a medical officer. Military medicine demands efficiency with limited resources and early leadership responsibility - training that prepared him for building his own practice. [S35]
Return to Chandler (1976)
In 1976, Dr. Goodman returned to Chandler - the town where his father had practiced and died. Chandler then had roughly 20,000 people; today it approaches 300,000. By establishing his practice at the start of the population boom, he became the de facto obstetrician for thousands of new families. [S35]
His first office was a straightforward clinical space - a normal practice for a young OB/GYN building a patient base. The philosophy of warmth and comfort that would later define MomDoc hadn’t yet taken shape.
Building MomDoc
What began as a small practice (Goodman & Partridge) evolved into MomDoc, one of Arizona’s largest women’s health networks. [S10]
The Chandler Medical Building
In the early 1980s, the practice moved to the Chandler Medical Building on Dobson Road, adjacent to Chandler Community Hospital (later Chandler Regional Medical Center). It was here that Dr. Goodman’s instinct for patient comfort first became visible. The waiting room still had a standard front desk setup, but it also featured a working stone mantel hearth and wood-burning fireplace - a striking departure from the sterile norm. Whenever it rained in the desert, the staff lit a fire. Patients checking in for prenatal appointments sat beside crackling flames while monsoon rain streaked the windows. [S4]
That fireplace was the seed of something larger.
The “Women for Women” model
As the practice grew, Dr. Goodman formalized the patient-centered approach that had begun with that fireplace:
- Provider diversity: Aggressively hired female providers - MDs, DOs, Certified Nurse Midwives, Women’s Health Nurse Practitioners
- Midwifery integration: Unlike many OB/GYN practices that viewed midwives as competition, MomDoc integrated them for collaborative care
- Living room lobbies: Later offices extended the Dobson Road philosophy further - waiting areas designed to feel like homes rather than clinics, with comfortable seating, warm lighting, and a non-clinical aesthetic [S35]
Technology firsts
MomDoc was the first OB/GYN in Arizona to offer 3D and 4D Live Motion Ultrasound. [S10]
Chief of Staff
Like his father before him, Clifford Jr. served as Chief of Staff at Chandler Regional Medical Center. This multigenerational holding of the same position at the same hospital is rare in American medicine. [S35]
Family & Home on Bullmoose Drive
While building MomDoc and serving the community, Cliff and Nadina raised a large, lively family: five sons (Clifford III, Peter, Nick, Matthias, Michael) and one daughter (Dana). They grew up in a Chandler that was transforming from a rural town into a suburban city. [S4]
In 1986, the Goodmans moved to a home on North Bullmoose Drive - then a dirt road in a semi-rural “horse neighborhood” on the outskirts of town. On a generous 0.8-acre lot, the children enjoyed a desert childhood: roaming freely on bikes, cutting through alfalfa fields and pecan groves, racing dirt bikes along irrigation canals, and playing street hockey that could go undisturbed for hours. The neighborhood was dotted with pasture fences, grazing horses, and the occasional rooster crowing at dawn. [S4]
Chandler’s population soared from about 30,000 in 1980 to over 100,000 by 2000 as high-tech employers like Intel built nearby. The dirt roads were paved; the vacant lot across from the house was subdivided. Yet the Goodmans held onto pieces of the old ways - annual family camping trips to the mountains, the irrigation ditch that still ran behind their property, and the deep friendships forged in that Bullmoose Drive neighborhood. [S4]
When Dr. Goodman died in 2022, his viewing was held at the family home on Bullmoose Drive. On the wall hung an old framed photo of William and Margarett Goodman’s homestead in St. David, 1884; nearby was a recent snapshot of Cliff and Nadina with their 18 grandchildren in front of the Mesa Arizona Temple. The sense of continuity was profound. [S4]
Legacy
By the time of his death in 2022, MomDoc had grown to 21 offices throughout the Valley. His son Nick Goodman serves as current CEO, continuing the four-generation Goodman healthcare legacy. [S10]