Providence Pediatrician: Flexible with Vax
Choosing a doctor or health professional can be so, so hard! All of your input is always so appreciated by the rest of our urbanMamas community. So, can you help Valerie with some suggestions?
I am currently looking for a new pediatrician for my 3 month old and 3 year old. Until now they have always seen a naturopath, however due to insurance changes I need to find a pediatrician who is flexible with immunizations. We are on a slow-track for immunizing and do not want to feel pressured to follow traditional recommendations. I am specifically looking for a Providence provider. Any information about doctors that mamas like in the Providence system would be so helpful.
I had the same issue with insurance not covering naturopaths, and we've been seeing Dr. Kristin Kocher at Providence Gateway Family and Community Medicine. She is great, totally supportive of whatever is working for your family, including putting off vaccinations as long as possible, and picking and choosing which ones are more important. Our whole family sees her, and we really like her!
Posted by: sarah | October 16, 2006 at 11:45 AM
I second Providence Gateway. We have a family practice doctor named Elizabeth O'Neill and we love her. She has been great abouat listening to our needs all through my pregnancy and through my daughter's first 15 months. She delivered the baby and is now her pediatrician as well as my PCP. She has a lot of "naturopathic" ideas as well. I like all of the doctors in the practice, and I really like the idea of everyone in the family having the same doctor for all of our needs.
Posted by: mamala | October 16, 2006 at 12:24 PM
We see a family NP named Max Tenscher at HealthMax on NW Lovejoy off of 21st. He's not in the Providence system but we have Providence PPO and he takes that insurance. He's sweet and warm and my 3 yo loves him. We don't vax at all and while he wishes we would just a little (he teases me in our checkups: "Now you haven't gone and had vaccinations with anyone else, have you?") but always respects our parenting decisions. Love. Him.
Posted by: Kat | October 16, 2006 at 02:30 PM
I have a five week old son who sees Dr. Kristan Collins at Broadway Medical. It is NE Portland in the Hollywood district. Our son has had problems gaining weight and she has been great. Calls us in between apointment to check in and see how Liam and I am doing. I highly recommend her. Good luck.
Posted by: Chrissy | October 17, 2006 at 06:24 AM
Although we ultimately left Broadway Medical because the waits were consistently horrendous, the office staff completely indifferent, and the parking sucked, we had Kristan Collins and loved her, too. She was cool about not vaxing, and one time she took apart her ear flashlight to show my 4yo the battery.
Now we're with Sandy Sequiera at East Portland Pediatric, who is very nice. She's a vax believer, but after the initial conversation in which we explained our position, she said she respected our right to do as we think best, and she's never brought it up again.
Posted by: Kate | October 17, 2006 at 12:12 PM
Thanks for the advice. It is good to knoe that there are some good options out there.
Posted by: VLloyd | November 21, 2006 at 02:37 PM
This might be old for advice at this point, but my wife and I took our children to Dr Ben Grassley who was quite open to trying natural medicines if we as parents were expressing an interest. Just a though if your kids are still young.
Matt From Providence Storage
Posted by: matt@providence storage | June 23, 2011 at 11:45 AM