Each year, we partner with thousands of Northwesterners as they make their journeys through trauma, addiction and mental health challenges. For many, medication therapy is part of their treatment plan to regain health, hope and happiness.

Meet Dr. Alfredo Soto, the Medical Director for LCS Northwest. He provides medical leadership and expert guidance to our team of medication managers. He started his position on Dec. 16.

Dr. Soto is Board Certified in both child and adolescent as well as adult psychiatry. He is bilingual and bicultural as a Colombian-American, with some of his medical training occurring in Latin America. He has training in some of the evidence-based practices used by our clinicians such as dialectical behavior therapy, parent-child interaction therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. 

His most recent work experience includes serving as the Medical Director for Polk County Behavioral Health and for Albertina Kerr Center, a children’s mental health and intellectual or developmental disability (IDD) services provider in the Portland area.

What drew Dr. Soto to LCS Northwest? He spent several years working with us indirectly through a contractor in central Oregon and liked our work.

“Lutheran is a large organization and its services are very organic. One of my immediate goals is to get to know the staff and the populations that they serve,” Dr. Soto said. “Clinical services vary by location and are tied to community needs.”

Our clinical counseling teams in Portland, Vancouver, SeaTac/Kent, Tri-Cities, Klamath Falls, Bend and Yamhill County include certified medication prescribers. They prescribe psychiatric medications, review a client’s existing medications and how they interact with each other, monitor their medication plan for safety and effectiveness and educate the client about their medications.

Dr. Soto provides clinical oversight to the prescribers and serves as a resource to the team. He will also provide consultations for our Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) in Spokane.

Nora Foster is the Associate Director of Klamath Falls and Bend. Her clinical team includes several prescribers who treat clients with mental health challenges and substance abuse disorder.

“The Medical Director gives us the ability to ask for a peer review from someone who has been trained specifically in medications. It allows us to have a team approach instead of feeling like an island all by ourselves,” she explained. “We are looking forward to partnering with Dr.Soto and aligning our services to be the best we can offer.”

Dr. Soto hopes to create greater unity among his medication providers so they feel less isolated. 

“I’m available as a resource and for support, but I envision a time when they can also help each other,” he said.