The last of the true country doctors retires

It’s hard to put into words how many people have been healed and helped over the years by Dr. Robert (Bob) Rust, family members said.

Rust retired after a 52-year medical career, 47 of them spent in Sandpoint. Dr. Rust had such a profound impact on the lives of his patients, his family, and his community that it is hard to fathom that he is finally hanging up his stethoscope at the spry young age of 78.

After three years serving his country as a Navy doctor in California and Alaska and two years tending to patients in Bonners Ferry and Ventura, California, Bob Rust and his wife Marian settled in Sandpoint in 1974. Dr. Rust entered family practice, while Marian, a registered nurse, stayed home to raise their eight children, who are all doing well in life and raising a large gaggle of grandkids and great-grandkids. Several of them work in health care.

The last of the true country doctors, Bob treated any and everyone, whether or not they had medical insurance or could offer conventional payment. He once accepted a semi-load of freshly cut timber as payment, so one of his teenage sons could saw them into firewood to pay for ruining the axle of the family car after a night of partying. Many a huckleberry went to pay for wart removal or stitches. Family members said that while trading for goods and services was not his preferred business method, he would to so to help keep many patients out of unrelenting medical bankruptcy, much to the chagrin of medical boards and debt collectors.

As his children recall, he would often be called into the hospital at all hours of the day and night to fix broken bones, catch newborns, and deal with all manner of unusual injury. Occasionally, he would have to drag his children, bleary-eyed from a long day skiing at Schweitzer (where Bob helped organize the ski team) down to the hospital to sit in the family Suburban for hours waiting for him to help each and every patient with tender care and good humor. A sheriff once had to ask his four oldest if they’d been abandoned outside the hospital while he was making evening rounds.

Dr. Rust ran his own practice, performed surgeries at Bonner General Hospital, made house calls, served the senior community in Bayview, and opened the first urgent care centers in Sandpoint and Lewiston before transitioning to addiction medicine during the final years of his career.

Dr. Rust constantly studied the major medical journals to stay current in a rapidly changing field, family members said. He regularly attended medical conferences and, during his years as an addiction specialist, gave guest lectures at the University of Washington Medical School.

A devout Catholic, Dr. Rust refused to perform abortions or prescribe birth control, and successfully petitioned the school board to adopt abstinence-only sex ed on more than one occasion.

He remains an adamant supporter of youth sports, having spent many years donating time, money, and his coaching skills to youth baseball and skiing while supporting all manner of high school athletics. His teams always went to Dub's to celebrate, win or lose, though sprinkles were for winners. He also loves his Zags and Seahawks.

In these days when medical care has become driven by profits and egos, family members said Bob Rust may be the last of his kind — a true country doctor in the spirit of the pioneering West.