Seeking Pediatrican in Vancouver Area

Another vote for Evergreen Pediatrics! We haven't been there long but have liked both Dr's we've seen. We've decided on Dr. Bucher. She's knowledgable, open to our more natural approach and very good with our son. We never feel rushed with her.

As a side note, I'm not impressed with their nursing staff thus far. Maybe we get the same girl every time, but she is terribly un-friendly. Likes she hates being at work. Thankfully, we see her less than the Dr.

We see Dr deRenne @ Evergreen Pediatrics. He has always been patient with my questions but I have also learned to love his nurse, Melissa, who takes my calls in between visits. She is very patient and she knows her stuff. We chose to vacinate our son so I don't know what stand our doctor takes with people who choose not to.

I used to schedule for a peds office in Portland and want to offer you a view from the office perspective. If the doctors worked in every child whose parent's wanted them in that day they would be there all night. They have their nurses triage the calls to see what children need to get in and what children have something that will work itself out without medical attention. The nurses are great and can offer alot of advice that is the same advice you get from the doctor and its free! For behavioral issues, it is good to utilize other parenting resources - classes, books,etc because the doctors time is limited usually to 15min and they aren't able to cover everything around sleep issues or other behavioral problems.

Hope this helps.

Have you ever thought about going with a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner? I never knew it was a option until a friend who is a midwife suggested a PNP instead of a dr. She said they do everything the same, but it is a more personal relationship. I would have looked into it more if I had not found my ped. at Creekside Medical, we are a good fit.

I have a five year old son that had seizures shortly after birth, fell off the growth chart at 9 months and has never been higher than the 10th percentile in any category, he has a small head and, for our own reasons, we choose not to vaccinate.
With his first ped I would leave each of his well baby check ups crying having had failure to thrive (though he always ate, never lost weight and his small stature was very obviously genetic), Micro/cephal/us (once again his smallish head being genetic), and the very great possibility that he could DIE if we continued to not vaccinate thrown at me. Plus though we saw her for over a year she seemed to need a reminder at each visit that my son was indeed her patient.
We only saw his second ped twice, once to establish care which he double flinched when we said we didn't vaccinate seemed skeptical when I told him August's weight was a genetic thing and seemed overly concerned that my three year olds testicles hadn't descended, which from what I've heard can happen anytime into the teen years.
I tell you all this to let you know that I didn't think I would ever find a pediatrician that I liked. But I did. His name is Dr. Gerald Bader, we see him out of the Vancouver Clinic at Salmon Creek. In our first appointment he simply asked if his uncle with the small head had learning problems, said his only concern with our choice to not vaccinate is how to deal with it when we are ready to enroll August in school, and said if he was pooping and peeing and continued on his own growth arc that he wasn't concerned with his weight. He's a bit old school and very warm. Very good with both my children and I will be bringing our baby girl in soon to establish care.

Good luck.

I take my daughters to Dr. Speaker at Creekside Medical in Salmon Creek. All of the Drs. there are great, they are pediatric and internal medicine certified so you could go there as well (makes it nice) anyway I have seen 3 of the Drs. there and they are all wonderful and patient. They have an on-call dr at all times you can speak to and they get you in to see the dr (or one of the drs.) asap! Hope you find someone that suits you! Good luck!

Hi S., just in case you are further on the east side of Vancouver, I take my 10-month-old son to see Dr. Jennifer Lyons at The Vancouver Clinic at the Columbia Tech Center (172nd and Mill Plain). They have very caring and friendly doctors, nurses, receptionists, I have been able to get same day appointments when needed, and our pediatrician has been very understanding of our personal views on vaccinations, never pushy about them. She is always open to our questions and tries to be as helpful as possible. Good luck!

We use Evergreen Pediatric and love it! Specifically, our doctor is Aiden DeRenne. He is awesome. I have never felt like he wasn't listening or taking me serious, and I have never not been able to get in same day. I refused the chicken pox vaccine, and didn't feel like he had a problem with that... just that he wanted me to be informed, and is working with me just fine.

I vote for Evergreen Peds as well. We've seen just about every doctor there (between our preemie and our now 2 year old). There isn't a doctor I didn't like. Dr. Voytas is new there and we've seen him a few times and I would go to him in a heartbeat. My other favorite is Kathleen Hutchinson. Our PCP is Dr. Cuneo and she is very good as well. Our doctors at Doernbecher recommended Evergreen Peds for the Vancouver area. We usually can be seen the same day, the on call doctors are great, and the advice nurses have been wonderful. I don't know about immunizations though because we have gone ahead with them. Every doctor has been willing to answer questions or refer us to someone or somewhere that can answer them.

On a personal experience note, we used to go to Creekside Medical. I was a patient of Dr. Jones since she started practicing in Vancouver and my oldest was seen by Dr. Speaker when she was born. I really like both doctors, but once they left the Vancouver Clinic, I haven't been as happy. I know they have made some changes, but I wouldn't go back. It took forever to get referrals (weeks as compared to the minutes or same day with Evergreen Peds), I've had misdiagnoses because I wasn't taken seriously, and the last straw was when I told Dr. Jones that we were taking our preemie to Evergreen because we needed the extended office hours, a doctor who goes to SWMC (Creekside only goes to Legacy and our ins. plan doesn't cover Legacy ), and being okay with calling after hours. Dr. Jones was quite rude about the whole thing and told me that if I didn't trust her maybe I shouldn't have my other daughter or myself see her. I planned on to keep her as my PCP, but after that we all changed to different doctors. We had very definite needs and challenges and I didn't feel they wouldn't be able to meet them. But remember, it's just my opinion.

I use Dr. Fuchs at Evergreen Pediatrics. He's soft spoken and totally laid back. I take a hugely slow pace to immunizations, and he had absolutely no problem with it. He takes him time with my boys and is gentle and kind with them.