Medicine is a science, but it is also an art.  Some questions have one right answer and others have several.  There is room among competent doctors for differing professional approaches — this is what we call “practice style”.  I consider myself something of a minimalist.  I have immense faith in the body’s natural ability to heal, and in the immune system’s efficacy in fighting infection.  I believe that the power of medicine should be used very judiciously and only when there is a firm evidence base to do so.  At the same time, when a technology is firmly proven and established, I advocate strongly for its adoption.  I consider vaccines to be one of mankind’s greatest inventions, and I follow the standard vaccine schedule recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the CDC. If parents or patients do not agree with our interpretation of the scientific literature about vaccines, you may not be a good fit for Orca Pediatrics. However, I will support each family in finding an alternative vaccine schedule with which you are comfortable. Please realize, I will aim to have your child vaccinated as close to the recommended schedule as possible. 

Just as doctors have different styles, so do parents.  So if I find one of my recommendations met with hesitancy by a parent, I respect that in their effort to do the best for their child, they simply came to a different conclusion than I did.  In these situations, I use my expertise alongside the parent’s unmatched knowledge of and love for their child to try to find a solution that works best for everyone.

I am married to Jon Penoyar, a Washington native and local family medicine hospitalist. We have a daughter Grace, an avid reader, writer, and violinist for SOGO. We have a flock of hens that Grace adores and tries, from time to time, to dress up as various characters. The size of the flock varies with the appetites of the local redtail hawks and coyotes. We have succeeded in teaching two chickens to ride the handlebars of Grace’s bike. Please don’t offer us a rooster: we will politely decline.

My interests include gardening, especially flowers. Jon’s interests include building me more and more planter boxes, and shoveling in large quantities of dirt and mulch. I make fresh arrangements in season, and have a burgeoning interest in drying flowers so I can keep it up all year long. As a family we love travel and the outdoors, especially backpacking, though in recent years the ground seems to be getting colder and rockier so we may soon hand that hobby off to Grace. We make sack lunches for the homeless every Sunday, and volunteer at the Tumwater Food Bank. Indoors I like to spend my time reading, my most recent obsession being Louise Penny, and if you want to talk about this in clinic the appointment may be extended indefinitely.