White Oak Wellness creates a setting for many health care disciplines

By Melissa Wagoner

Katie Rablin has known what she wanted to do for her career since a science class at Silverton High School when she gave a presentation on acupuncture.

“I’ve always been interested in Chinese medicine,” Rablin said.

Although her interests have never wavered, her path has encompassed more than she originally imagined.

Starting out by attending massage school on the island of Kauai in Hawaii, Rablin spent six years enjoying the island’s many attributes, eventually attending community college there and receiving her nursing license.

“At the college in Hawaii the counselor convinced me to go into the nursing program to know the Western side of medicine. It taught me when Western medicine is really truly necessary,” Rablin said.

After moving back to Oregon, Katie worked at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland while at the same time attending the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine.

“So much memorization. It’s life-long learning and a big undertaking, especially once I had a good job,” Rablin  said. “For a long time I worked on weekends and went to school during the week.”

After receiving a master’s degree in Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture, Rablin  moved back to her hometown working both at Silverton Hospital as a nurse and with her sister Beverly Rablin, also a massage therapist, at Eng Acupuncture.

Now Rablin has decided to take another big step in her career and open her own clinic. Opening under the name White Oak Wellness, the new clinic is housed in the space formerly home to Schmidt Chiropractic.

“I was a patient of Dr. John’s and when I heard he passed away someone said, ‘You should look at the space,’” she said.

Rablin, who was pregnant with her first child at the time, was initially unsure about the timing, but when a family member agreed to purchase the building and lease it to her, she decided to act.

“I just felt a really strong impetus to do it,” she said. “Dr. Schmidt’s dad was a chiropractor and naturopath. They were here for three or four decades. I felt it was fitting to keep the space as a healing space.”

Like Schmidt Chiropractic, White Oak Wellness is a family affair.

“Our whole family remodeled this building. I couldn’t have done it without everyone,” Rablin said.

Joined by her sister Beverly, the two have opened the doors to both clients and other practitioners including five massage therapists, a cranial sacral therapist and a nutritional consultant.

“My goal was to create a place for the people who were coming to me saying they needed a space,” Katie said. “Some people don’t want to rent a space five days a week.”

White Oak Wellness is open seven days a week, with various practitioners there according to their own schedules, as well as Katie and Beverly’s infants Ancil and Etta, born two months apart.

“The receptionist we call Mother Teresa because she watches the babies,” Beverly said.

Even with help from family opening a new business isn’t easy but Rablin is working on keeping a good balance.

“That’s something motherhood has shown me. Something has to wait,” she said. “We’re so fast paced now; this is like a retreat or reprieve. We’re trying to create a gathering space for everyone to come and receive treatment.”