Meet Dr. Haeberle, New doctor shares life lessons

Mary Stroka

NLJ Reporter

Dr. John Haeberle, whose first day at Weston County Health Services’ Newcastle Clinic was July 15, said he chose medicine because, coming from “a long line” of pharmacy owners and pharmacists, it was the culture he grew up in.

Still, he didn’t always find it straightforward.

“I’ve really grown into the job,” Haeberle said. “Early in my career, I think I was a little overwhelmed with medicine, and medicine then was more of a business than a profession, and over the years I’ve really grown into just enjoying my job and not worrying about the rest.”

Haeberle graduated from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 1994 and did a family medicine residency until 1997 in Nebraska. In 2015, Haeberle became board certified in clinical lipidology, a specialty that is focused on the prevention of heart disease and heart attacks. He said he has an interest in this part of medicine because heart disease is the leading cause of death for Americans.

Haeberle said he had a very busy primary care practice in Laramie, but after a couple of providers left for family reasons, it was difficult to keep the practice sustainable. He and his wife, Yvette, have owned some property in Weston County that they had planned on living on when they retired. Yvette, who is also a physician, was teaching at a medical school and has retired, and the changes in the Laramie practice nudged them to move to Weston County this year.

“I’m glad we did because it was a good move, and there’s no sense waiting to live where you want to live,” he said.

John and Yvette enjoy riding horses, cutting wood and hunting, and they have two sons, who both got married in the past year and have babies on the way. Alex lives in Buffalo, New York, and Joseph lives in Roseburg, Oregon.

John said he and Yvette learned a new form of exercise after their CrossFit gym in Laramie closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They became passionate about barbell lifting. The couple consistently lifts three or four times weekly, and John said they’re big proponents
of strength training for people who are 50 and older.

“The defining characteristic of aging is loss of muscle mass, and it’s reversible and so we want to, well, not age, I guess, at least in that particular way,” he said.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Haeberle also learned more about how to practice medicine.

“I learned how to shut up and listen to people when they were telling me what they valued,” he said, with a laugh. “And it turns out that what’s really important to getting good outcomes in health care is that the patient has to be involved in the decisions, oddly enough.”

He said that it’s important to focus on helping patients reach their goals, such as reaching a level of health that allows them to take a big trip. Doctors might otherwise be focused on goals that are related to specific parts of patients’ medical charts or goals that Medicare or insurance companies create.

“At some point, going on that trip is way more important than anything else,” he said.

In Laramie, he learned a lot from patients who were “the first in line to get a vaccine and the last to take a mask off” and those who were “the other way around,” he said.

“It was hard to say that there was anyone doing anything other than what they thought was right,” Haeberle said. “I learned how to slow my recommendations down a little bit and listen to what their goals were.”

The people he and Yvette have met in Weston County have been very kind, according to Haeberle, who said he feels like people have been “very accepting” of him. He realizes he’s new to the community, however.

“I hope people feel like they can come and see me and that I’m not, I guess, just the guy from out of town,” he said. “I’m the guy from here now.”