PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, AUGUST 25, 2017
KeizerCommunity
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Hanging up the stethoscope
Longtime
Keizer MD
retiring
By ERIC A. HOWALD
Of the Keizertimes
It’s been the summer of the
long goodbye for Dr. Jay Jamie-
son of Willamette Valley Physi-
cians on River Road North.
After 34 years as a family
care physician in the area – 30
of them in Keizer – Jamieson
is retiring. The goodbyes have
taken on a now-familiar form:
Jamieson talks with the patient
about the problem of the day
and is about to leave when the
patient asks if he “has a minute.”
Then a new space is opened up.
“They will recall some poi-
gnant moment in their health
and thank me for helping them
through it,” Jamieson said.
In those moments, Jamie-
son is awed by his profession
and the ways in which things
he learned years ago, or just
last year, make a difference in
people’s lives.
“You have six billion chemi-
cal reactions going on in your
body right now and I have skills
that allow me to ask you ques-
tions regarding what’s going on
and then examination skills that
can lead me to the possibilities
of A, B, C or D. And, if that’s the
case, we do X, Y or Z to fi gure
it out,” Jamieson said.
Several people loomed large
over Jamieson’s decision to be-
come a doctor. His own child-
hood primary care physician
and Dr. Grant Thorsett at Wil-
lamette University were two of
them, but Jamieson’s mother, a
registered nurse, had some of
the biggest impact.
“She would come home
with stories of amazing things
that happened,” Jamieson said.
Jamieson was born in New
Jersey and moved to the west
coast after his father was trans-
ferred, as a civilian contractor,
to Vandenberg Air Force Base
in Lompoc, Calif. He received
his pre-med degree from Wil-
lamette University and then
studied medicine at North-
western University in Chicago.
Jamieson said serving in
many capacities for only a
month at a time during a three-
year residency prepared him for
the day-to-day work of being a
family physician.
“Every month during your
residency, you’re working in a
new fi eld, with new patients
and new systems. You are sort of
taught resiliency,” he said. While
he tried to keep an open mind,
he stuck with general practice
over a specialization because it
gave him the opportunity to do
a bit of everything.
Jamieson returned to the
mid-Willamette Valley in 1983
and began working for North-
west Human Services offi ce in
west Salem. After working off
his student loans, he performed
medical missionary work for
more than a year and then made
his return to the Salem area.
At the time, there were only
two doctors in Keizer. Dr. Ver-
non Casterline and Dr. Greg
Thomas, and Casterline was
planning his retirement. Jamie-
son took over Casterline’s side
of the practice in 1987 and
Thomas and Jamieson pur-
chased and bought the property
where WVP now sits in 1996.
Both Keizer and the medical
fi eld have changed a lot since
Jamieson fi rst came to town.
On the civic side of things,
Jamieson said one of the big-
gest treats was the arrival of the
Salem-Keizer Volcanoes. For a
while, Jamieson was tapped as
the Volcano’s team physician,
but the responsibilities along-
side raising fi ve kids and being
a partner in the clinic eventu-
ally prompted him to step aside.
In the grand scheme, medi-
cal practice has changed more
drastically.
Cornhole tourney Sept. 9
Shangri-La and Salem Ale
Works present the second an-
nual Capitol City Cornhole
Classic on Sept. 9 at the State
Capitol State Park, 155 Wa-
verly Street NE. The event
starts at 10 a.m. and goes to
5 p.m.
Capitol City Cornhole
Classic is a fundraiser for
Shangri-La. Proceeds will
help people with disabilities
and families with disadvan-
tages realize and achieve their
full potential.
Pre-registration is required
by Sept. 5 at 10 p.m. Entry
fees are non-refundable and
non-transferable. Admission is
$45 per team for two player
teams. One player rule break-
er division for children ages
six to 12 and people with dis-
abilities who need accommo-
dation is $10.
For more information, go
to ShangrilaOregon.org or
contact Ashley at communi-
ty@shangrilaor.org.
KEIZERTIMES/Eric A. Howald
Dr. Jay Jamieson, a Keizer doctor for more than 30 years, is retiring Aug. 31.
When Jamieson started out,
his responsibilities entailed
regular visits to the hospital ei-
ther to admit patients or simply
make the rounds on patients
already there. Those duties are
now performed by interning
physicians who send Jamieson
updates. It might seem like a
small thing, but the change
helped Jamieson get more sleep
and focus on patients at the
clinic. There is also signifi cant-
ly more outpatient treatment
available for most problems.
“If you had a blood clot
when I started, you’d be in a
hospital for seven days and I
would have to go to the hos-
pital and check in on you ev-
ery day. Now they start you on
shots you give yourself and a
pill and it works fi ne,” Jamieson
said.
In 2011, with major changes
coming as a result of the Af-
fordable Care Act (ACA), Ja-
mieson and Thomas sold the
clinic to WVP Medical Clinics.
Jamieson sees both good and
frustrating things in what the
ACA accomplished, but if 34
years in medicine taught him
anything, it’s fl exibility.
Still after all that time, and
with retirement a mere week
away, Jamieson can still fi nd
himself reeling at the thought
of all his career has entailed.
“I was doing a sports physi-
cal the other day and I looked
over at the boy’s mom and said,
‘You know, you would have
been about the same age when
I fi rst started seeing you,’” he
said.
Jamieson has treated as many
as fi ve generations of the same
family, and has numerous fami-
lies in which he’s treated three
generations. Given that en-
trenchment in people’s lives,
he’s tried to assuage the fears
that come with change.
“I won’t be here, but people
will still come before paper and
our patients’ time will be treat-
ed as valuably as our own,” he
said.
More than that though, it’s
left him with a different sense
of awe – at the lessons in humil-
ity his patients have taught him.
Jamieson and Thomas never put
up billboards or paid for a lot of
advertising even when compe-
tition came to town. They re-
lied mostly on word-of-mouth.
It was only recently, during the
summer of the long goodbye,
that Jamieson is able to com-
prehend the scope of his impact
on the lives of his patients, in
those moments after the sched-
uled appointments are over.
“It’s been humbling to real-
ize that they trusted me and the
other staff with their healthcare
needs and we take that very se-
riously,” he said. “Hearing peo-
ple thanking me has been very
humbling and I did not real-
ize the impact I had. I always
fi gured I’m just one of many
family doctors, but some of my
patients kept coming back for
30 years.”
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