WAFP Member Featured in AAFP Article

Gretchen LaSalle, MD, MPH, FAAFP, of Spokane, was the subject of an online article on the American Academy of Family Physicians website. The article talks about her extensive work with vaccines.

But as she tells AAFP, she didn’t start off in medicine to become an expert in immunizations.

“I was coming up against increasing vaccine questions from my patients and didn’t feel fully prepared to deal with the questions they were bringing me, mostly from social media,” LaSalle told AAFP. “I got into a self-learning journey, trying to teach myself these things so I could help my patients avoid falling victim to misinformation. There was a lot of great information for physicians out there, but there was nothing in one place that answered all the questions we needed to answer to help our patients. That’s how I ended up writing my book.”

That book couldn’t have been more timely. “Let’s Talk Vaccines: A Clinician’s Guide to Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy and Saving Lives” was released in 2019, less than a year before the covid-19 epidemic.

LaSalle is a graduate of the AAFP’s Vaccine Science Fellowship program and currently serves as one of two WAFP representatives on the state Department of Health’s Vaccine Advisory Committee.