Over the years, Dr. Katherine Zieman has attended upward of 1,000 births and keeps busy with a private family practice focusing on pediatrics, women’s issues, infertility and chronic disease. She was a partner in a busy birth center in Portland before moving her practice to Gresham, Oregon, to be closer to home and her children, as well as to serve the eastern part of Multnomah county.
After attending New York Chiropractic College in the late 1980s, she was led to Oregon by her passion for midwifery and family medicine. Back on the east coast, legend told that chiropractors in Oregon had license to deliver babies. By 1990 that was no longer the case and Dr. Zieman found a home at National College of Naturopathic Medicine (now NUNM) where she received her training in family medicine, pediatrics and midwifery.
Dr. Zieman has been a faculty member at NUNM since 1994 as a member of the Natural Childbirth department. In addition she has also taught endocrinology and pediatrics. She spent a couple of years sharing her expertise with aspiring midwives as a faculty member of the Birthingway Midwifery school in Portland. She has been training students clinically for 15+ years in the fields of midwifery, pediatrics and family medicine.
Dr. Zieman has consulted on many articles for publication on wholistic treatments for many pregnancy issues, as well as serving as a consultant for various books on natural treatments for infertility. In Medical Crossfire, an allopathic journal devoted to specific topics, she wrote an article contributing the naturopathic point-of-view of treatment of otitis media for the peer exchange section. She has also appeared in various radio programs about alternative health options for both pregnancy and chronic diseases; and had a regular “ask the experts” column in a Portland newspaper, answering readers’ inquiries on the many ailments of children and pregnant women. She lectures on a regular basis at seminars on natural childbirth and natural health in various venues for both professionals and the public.
She is married and the proud mother of two daughters, and resides on a small farm in the Columbia River Gorge where she and her family keep sheep, chickens, turkeys, pigs and various other animals.
Dr. Zieman lived another life before emigrating to Oregon in 1990. She was a theatre professional in NYC, doing improv and pantomime, acting, dancing; and was best known for her work in experimental theatre in the East Village in the late 70s and 80s. She made a few commercials and worked for 10 years in the 4th Wall Repertory Theatre, writing, choreographing and acting in most of their productions. In Oregon, she put herself through naturopathic medical school entertaining at children’s parties and doing singing telegrams. These days, she keeps busy with a private naturopathic family practice as well as delivering babies, and directs the musicals at Corbett Children’s Theatre in Corbett, Oregon. Many thanks to her father for fostering her interest in theatre, and her husband David for allowing her this indulgence.