Gretchen LaSalle is a board certified Family Physician in Spokane, Washington. She is passionate about prevention, community health, and education and is a self described “semi-obsessed” vaccine advocate. She has written multiple articles on the subject and, in 2019, published a book, titled Let’s Talk Vaccines: A Clinician’s Guide to Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy and Saving Lives, aimed at helping her fellow health care providers find greater success in caring for vaccine-hesitant patients.
Dr. LaSalle did her undergraduate studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee where she graduated cum laude with a bachelors degree in Biology and a minor in French. She attended the Tulane University School of Medicine where she met and married her husband. Upon graduating from Tulane with AOA honors, Dr. LaSalle moved to Portland, Oregon to begin her residency training in Family Medicine at Oregon Health and Science University. She worked in Portland after graduation while her husband finished his Rheumatology fellowship and then moved with her husband and two sons to Spokane. She has been actively involved in service to her clinic, serving two terms on the Board of Directors, serving on the Governance Committee, and chairing the Transitions of Care Committee. She is a Clinical Associate Professor for the Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine and has served as clinical preceptor for the University of Washington MEDEX program and other Physician Assistant and Nurse Practitioner training programs in order to help develop our next generation of physicians and advanced practice providers.
She is an American Academy of Family Physicians Vaccine Science Fellow, is actively involved in multiple local and national organizations aimed at improving vaccination rates, and will be rounding out her training with a Masters in Public Health degree, starting Fall of 2023.
Outside of work, Dr. LaSalle enjoys writing, travel, cooking, and spending time with her husband and 2 sons in the beautiful Inland Northwest.