Dr. Bruce Hayse still makes traditional house calls. There is a connection that you can’t get over the phone, he said about a face-to-face meeting. But Dr. Hayse is living through a renaissance of sorts, a time when doctors can provide care in the comfort of your own home via the computer. It’s the modern house call.
Dr. Bruce Hayse has traveled to the ends of the Earth as is evident by his overwhelming collection of flags, artifacts, animal skulls and gifts that fill his Swedish style house. In the world of Telehealth and Zoom calls, Dr. Hayse still makes traditional house calls. There is a connection that you can’t get over the phone he said. Dr. Hayse is living through a renaissance of sorts where doctors can provide care in the comfort of your own home via the computer. It’s the modern house call.
Dr. Bruce Hayse has traveled to the ends of the Earth as is evident by his overwhelming collection of flags, artifacts, animal skulls and gifts that fill his Swedish style house. In the world of Telehealth and Zoom calls, Dr. Hayse still makes traditional house calls. There is a connection that you can’t get over the phone he said. Dr. Hayse is living through a renaissance of sorts where doctors can provide care in the comfort of your own home via the computer. It’s the modern house call.
Bert Raynes chats with Mary Lohuis and Dr. Bruce Hayse in August 2018 at the Murie Ranch in Moose, where he earned the Spirit of Conservation Award. Hayse and Raynes enjoyed a doctor-patient relationship and friendship. Raynes died in 2021 at age 96.
Dr. Bruce Hayse still makes traditional house calls. There is a connection that you can’t get over the phone, he said about a face-to-face meeting. But Dr. Hayse is living through a renaissance of sorts, a time when doctors can provide care in the comfort of your own home via the computer. It’s the modern house call.
Dr. Bruce Hayse has traveled to the ends of the Earth as is evident by his overwhelming collection of flags, artifacts, animal skulls and gifts that fill his Swedish style house. In the world of Telehealth and Zoom calls, Dr. Hayse still makes traditional house calls. There is a connection that you can’t get over the phone he said. Dr. Hayse is living through a renaissance of sorts where doctors can provide care in the comfort of your own home via the computer. It’s the modern house call.
Dr. Bruce Hayse has traveled to the ends of the Earth as is evident by his overwhelming collection of flags, artifacts, animal skulls and gifts that fill his Swedish style house. In the world of Telehealth and Zoom calls, Dr. Hayse still makes traditional house calls. There is a connection that you can’t get over the phone he said. Dr. Hayse is living through a renaissance of sorts where doctors can provide care in the comfort of your own home via the computer. It’s the modern house call.
Bert Raynes chats with Mary Lohuis and Dr. Bruce Hayse in August 2018 at the Murie Ranch in Moose, where he earned the Spirit of Conservation Award. Hayse and Raynes enjoyed a doctor-patient relationship and friendship. Raynes died in 2021 at age 96.
One of the last remaining physicians still doing house calls in Jackson, Bruce Hayse has seen his share of changes in the medical industry, and the valley.
“When I first came here ... it was a much more seat of your pants type of medicine. It was fun. But it was also anxiety provoking,” Dr. Hayse said from his museum of a home perched above Cache Creek drainage.
From that vantage he looks down over the town he has served for over 40 years, treating some of its best-known names — Mardy Murie, Clarene Law, Bert Raynes — and some of its more eccentric characters (Gator, who lived one winter in a lean-to, was a personal favorite).
Often it’s a call in the night from a familiar name. A toolbox med kit tossed in the old Subaru Outback. A comforting hand at the bedside.
Those relationships have opened Hayse’s mind, stoked a connection to his home, and, in a recursive way, tied an entire generation together. Now, as Hayse continues to make house visits to octogenarians, there’s a blossoming approach with a striking similarity to the rural model of old.
Propelled by the pandemic, telehealth and its clinical component, telemedicine, now offer residents care in the comfort of their home. Telehealth’s champions see it as an essential component of the future healthcare landscape.
“Now, instead of opening the front door to their house and a physician walking in, physically, what we’re doing is we’re opening the digital front door,” Dr. Lisa Finkelstein said in a recent interview.
Finkelstein is a former urologist and the current director of telemedicine at St. John’s Health. Through existing partnerships and new grant funding, she’s slowly working to shift the tide of acceptance of virtual visits. The transition hasn’t been seamless.
Originally insurance companies required patients to travel to rural clinics, where they could video chat with their physician from a controlled setting. Finkelstein and her partner at St. John’s originated sites in Pinedale, Big Piney, Dubois and Star Valley for that purpose.
“Patients would go to these rural clinics so they could get their vital signs and connect to reliable internet,” she explained.
When the pandemic hit the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and private insurance companies pivoted to allow physicians to Zoom directly to patients’ homes (while also paying them for that service).
Still, the model was met with resistance.
“Physicians came on board kicking and screaming,” Finkelstein said. “It depends on the attitude of the providers, and most of us are trained very traditionally.”
That means being present with a patient, in the same room, with the benefit of all five senses. As Hayse puts it: “There’s a feeling you get from people that you can’t get from electronic communication.”
At 73 Hayse hasn’t adopted telehealth as readily as some of his younger compatriots. But there’s a deeper value to his approach that’s possible regardless of the medium.
“There has to be a sense of compassion and kindness that you give to people,” Hayse said.
At times in Hayse’s history of holistic care his assistance has looked more like companionship than traditional treatment.
He still has mementos from many of these relationships scattered throughout his home: a totem from “Indian John’s family,” a monkey skull from his time in the Congo, and of course, Kim Schmitz’s tennis shoes on the deck.
“They’ll stay there forever because Kim was a magnificent man,” Hayse said.
As he thinks back to some of the people he’s had the pleasure of treating, Hayse can’t help but see each life for its nuance. Incredible achievement, yes, but also personal histories of emotional trauma that sometimes manifested in bad choices with tragic consequence.
Schmitz, known for his illustrious climbing career, also suffered from drug and alcohol dependencies stemming from some of his more severe accidents in the mountains, Hayse recalled.
In those instances, one of the doctor’s chosen treatments is simply reminding people they aren’t alone in the universe.
“We’re not separate,” he said. “And it’s very easy to lose sight of that.”
Whether it’s a house call or a phone call offering a dose of nonjudgmental comfort and some positive direction, a physician’s influence can point people toward a healthier path.
“When you get to know somebody, you can really have a positive effect on their life and on their ability to care for themselves,” Hayse said.
For telehealth’s adopters, the digital systems offer a similar potential.
“We’re in this time period where people — doctors and patients — are trying to figure out the best type of patient situation to do a virtual visit,” Finkelstein said.
Acute, emergency needs, for example, might not make the cut. But offering advice and accountability — especially for more remote community members — can be easily streamlined through digital mediums.
And for those clinging to Jackson Hole’s adventure and expansiveness late into their sunset years, meeting a patient where they are can make their final days that much sweeter.
Mardy Murie suffered a host of problems late in her life, Hayse recalled, but she wanted to live out her days on the land she loved most, nestled at her homestead inside Grand Teton National Park.
“People pitched in and said, ‘OK, you can stay out at the Murie Cabin and we’ll take care of you. We’ll do whatever’s necessary,’” the doctor said.
Now Hayse finds himself with a similar patient, a well-known Wilson resident, who is 97.
The imperative is simple, he said. You do “whatever you can do to make their life easier.’”
Contact Evan Robinson-Johnson at 732-5901 or ERJ@jhnewsandguide.com.
Evan Robinson-Johnson covers issues residents face on a daily basis, from smoky skies to housing insecurity. Originally from New England, he has settled in east Jackson and avoids crowds by rollerblading through the alleyways.
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